Level 11

Born under a mulga tree near Finniss Springs homestead in 1932, Sydney Strangways, or Apwert'antyenha,* was raised by his grandmother Lily, a traditional Arabana woman at Gudnampa-nha (Curdimurka), amongst the last group of Arabana people maintaining traditional culture and lore without significant European impact, numbering about one hundred. Lily was from Ulyurla Palthiyangu-nha (near Hermit Hill), and kept Syd away from Finniss Springs out of fear he would be removed from family due to his light skin. As a young boy, Syd was involved in traditional life, attending ceremony and corroboree, and sometimes staying at Dawarra, the men’s camp where he would listen to the Elder men talk of law, current events and Ularaka, the stories and histories of the ‘Dreamtime’ that inform knowledge of Country and culture. Syd also knew his parents well, although they were often away working on stations in the region.

After the United Aborigines Mission opened the Finniss Springs Mission in 1939, Syd attended school there until age twelve, when he started droving, then working as a stockman on stations as far as north western South Australia to Queensland. In 1954 he started working for the Commonwealth Railways, becoming a ganger at Wangianna in 1958, and transferring to Alice Springs in 1964. Syd was married from 1966 until 1982, and has three children. He ultimately became a qualified lifter, working for the railways in Alice Springs until 1994 when the company was privatised, then drove the bus for the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Medical Clinic for eight years, before retiring in 2002.

As a senior Arabana Elder, and now the last surviving community member to personally recall the practice of traditional Arabana culture prior to European impact, Uncle Syd has been at the centre of a broad range of undertakings concerning Arabana community and culture. He was importantly involved in the Arabana Native Title claim, providing evidence of significant connections to Country and Arabana place names, and celebrated the occasion of the determination at Finniss Springs in 2012 as one of the oldest Arabana Native Title holders. Uncle Syd was also involved in the official renaming of Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) on Arabana Country, with a view that the traditional name would come to replace the European in a similar way to the mainstream cultural shift in referring to Uluru.

Uncle Syd also contributed to an Arabana language workshop with the Mobile Language Team based at the University of Adelaide, recording Arabana language for an online resource to assist in the learning of language and place names; and in 2016 worked with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation to produce a children’s book from a traditional Arabana story, as told by Uncle Syd, about “a time when Arabana country was full of very tall leafy trees in which many possum families lived.” These trees were fairly rare and only found in certain locations even when Syd’s father was a young boy. The book was illustrated by children at the Marree Aboriginal School over a two day workshop, to be published in Arabana and English and gifted to Arabana communities.

Sydney Strangways has worked with DIT on Arabana naming for Aboriginal Engagement programs, including the ‘Walpaara Anpa award’ (meaning “clever one”), encouraging academic participation in Aboriginal Secondary Students through the awarding of a laptop computer; and the ‘Yurangka Kari’ (“knowledgeable one”) Aboriginal Cadetship program targeting undergraduate university students.

*Literally “White Hair Hill”, in reference to a mass of white stone on the side of a sandhill in Southern Aranda country – just outside Arabana land – the site of the demise of an Ancestor.

Ian Crombie, or Minyungu, is a prominent member of the Coober Pedy and Umoona Aboriginal community, where he has lived for most of his life. This region, the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Native Title Area, is also the traditional country for both of his parents. Ian was married to Pauline Joyce Lennon in 1992, and they have a son, Matthew John Crombie (Katatjunti).

Whilst living in Coober Pedy, Ian has acquired various qualifications and has occupied several positions of leadership in the community. In 1979 he graduated from the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) Gnowangerup Bible Training Institute in Western Australia, before returning to Coober Pedy as a Pastor, to assist Pastor Bill Lennon.

Ian has worked in the health sector, as a Project Officer with Umoona Agred Care in the late-1990s, assisting with the development of Aged Care Accommodation at Umoona for the elderly and disabled in the community, and later serving as Chairperson of the Governing Committee; and for the Coober Pedy Hospital and Health Service as an Aboriginal Liaison Officer and Aboriginal Patient Pathway Officer.

Ian is a former Chairperson of the Antakirinja Matu-Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal Corporation (AMYAC), and was involved in the AMY Native Title claim, filed in 1995 and successfully determined in 2011 at Coober Pedy. In that capacity he was also involved in negotiations with the State government in relation to several  Indigenous Land Use Agreements over the Coober Pedy Precious Stones Field, Tallaringa Conservation Park, The Breakaways Reserve and a number of pastoral stations. He has sought to develop employment and sustainable economic development for the Coober Pedy Aboriginal community through business enterprises including an award winning joint venture with Oz Minerals in 2016, whilst staying in step with cultural considerations. At the 2011 Consent Determination, Ian expressed his optimism for the positive impact that Native Title and future business enterprise could have for his community: “We see education, training and jobs for our children and grand-children as the way for the future.”  He continues to be a board member of AMYAC and sits on the AMYAC Indigenous Community Trust Advisory Council.

Ian has also served as Vice-Chairperson of the Umoona Community Council - a nine person committee that oversees Aboriginal Affairs concerns in Coober Pedy; member of the Alinytjara Wilurana Natural Resource Management Board; Chairperson of the Breakaways-Kanku Conservation Park Co-management Board and as a former Councillor with the Coober Pedy District Council.

Dr Roger Thomas is a senior Aboriginal leader and proud Kokatha and Mirning man with a distinguished career in the public sector and education. Roger’s Kokatha family on his father’s side extends across the Northern parts of South Australia from Coober Pedy and Woomera, to the West Coast and Yalata. On his mother’s side, their traditional Mirning Country extends from the West Coast region around Koonibba, where Roger’s mother was born, into Western Australia. He spent most of his formative years growing up in Port Augusta, before relocating to Adelaide to complete his secondary education at Concordia College at Highgate.

Roger’s career in public service started in the early 1970s, at a key historical juncture in Aboriginal politics that saw many people of his generation become active in community affairs - after the 1967 Referendum created the Constitutional basis for a Federal approach to Aboriginal Affairs, and the Whitlam Government established the first Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs, with state-based offices employing ‘Welfare Officers’ to work with communities across the state. Roger worked in this capacity across various locations including Ceduna, Whyalla, Port Augusta and Coober Pedy, where he was strongly focussed on working with community, and “being there to assist in services to my people.”

Inspired by his father’s mentoring on the importance of education, Roger then moved into the sector, initially with TAFE SA where he led Aboriginal engagement for thirteen years, before a two year appointment as Managing Director of Puldamurra TAFE College in Western Australia. Roger then returned to South Australia to work at the University of Adelaide, over a twelve year tenure as the University’s first Aboriginal Professor and inaugural Professor of Indigenous Engagement, and as Dean of the Centre for Indigenous Research and Studies, Wilto Yerlo (now Wirltu Yarlu).

Throughout his career Roger has held various positions on State, National and International advisory committees and consortiums dealing with Indigenous issues. During the 1980s he was a member of the National Aboriginal Education Council (NAEC) and full-time Chairperson of the SA Aboriginal Education Consultative Committee, and later served as the South Australian representative and Deputy Chairperson on the Commonwealth Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council, established to advise government on improving Indigenous higher education participation rates. In 2007 Roger was appointed Chairperson of the Advisory Council, until departing in 2010.

He also served three terms as the first Aboriginal member of the South Australian Government’s Social Inclusion Board from 2003, this time focussed on addressing school retention rates, and issues affecting young people’s engagement with education.

In 2012 Roger was appointed as Manager of Aboriginal Heritage in the South Australian Department of State Development, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation (DSD-AAR), working with Aboriginal communities across the state to identify and protect significant sites; consult with Traditional Owners and Aboriginal communities on the application of the Aboriginal Heritage Act in relation to development and mining; and contributing to the advancement of ongoing policy reform where Aboriginal Heritage is threatened.

Roger has presented papers at numerous conferences and forums nationally and internationally, including in Germany, Colombia and the United States; and at the United Nations as a delegate to the seventh session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII7) in 2008.

In February 2017 Roger was appointed Treaty Commissioner for a term of three years, where he will lead consultation between Aboriginal peoples and the South Australian Government toward developing a treaty framework. As Commissioner, Roger has so far emphasised process over any prescribed outcome, seeing the role of the Office of Commissioner as facilitator, and planning extensive community engagement in service to understanding the aspirations of the Aboriginal community; ensuring negotiations are fair and lead to positive outcomes for Aboriginal people; and contributing to addressing the wrongs of the past: “We are going back and doing something that should have been done a couple of centuries ago.”

In 2018, Dr Thomas took on the role of Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement, to support the Government’s priority to find “more practical and timely” ways to support South Australia’s Aboriginal communities. As Commissioner, he provides Aboriginal leadership across South Australia, advocating on behalf of all Aboriginal people and communities. Roger investigates and advises on barriers to Aboriginal people’s access and full participation in government, non-government and private services.

In December 2020, Dr Thomas gave an historic address to the House of Assembly, South Australian Parliament where he presented the bi-annual ‘Report of the South Australian Commissioner for Aboriginal Engagement’.

Roger was awarded the NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the 2021 NAIDOC South Australian Awards.

Yami Lester is a Yankunytjatjara man from Walatina on the APY Lands in Far North South Australia. Yami grew up at Walatina, where he learned about warparitja, learning about country, from his father Kantji. “Then in October 1953, things suddenly changed for me, for all of us at Walatina. We heard a loud bang, the ground started shaking, then the black smoke rolled over. It was black and shiny.” Many years later Yami learned that this was radioactive fallout from Totem 1 – British and Australian Government nuclear testing that took place at Emu Junction.

“I went blind in one eye immediately, and was very sick for weeks.  No medical help was offered and the nearest clinic was Ernabella Mission, 160kms as the crow flies.

“Then four years later I went completely blind, while I was working as a stockman with contractors putting up a windmill on Granite Downs at ‘Nick of Time Bore’. My life changed forever. Anyway the contractor took me to Oodnadatta clinic where they couldn't do anything for me and I was very sick. I then had to wait four days for the Ghan train to take me to Port Augusta.  The policeman at Oodnadatta organized me along with the prisoners, who looked after me, while they were going to Green Bush (Port Augusta Goal), and me to the hospital.

“In Port Augusta, the doctor took one look at my eyes and sent me to Adelaide – by ambulance to the Royal Adelaide Hospital eye ward. There were no interpreters at the hospital and I had no understanding of what was happening. The doctor operated on me and removed my eye. I was then totally blind. Then a gentleman from the Blind Institute visited the eye ward and spoke to me, but I didn't understand English. Unbeknownst to me, he phoned Mr L J Samuels, the Secretary of Colebrook Home, who then came and visited me. Then the Superintendent Mr E Fink came and picked me up, and off I went to Colebrook Home.

“I was sharing my room with two boys, and one of them was George Turner. He was Kokatha, and for the first time since I arrived in Adelaide I was able to talk my language. George was the one who told me I wouldn't be going home to my family and country.  I was so upset, I cried for my eyes, my family and country for weeks. George also told me I would learn lots of new things, like how to live without being able to see.

“After some time I learned a great deal, and I was better off that they didn't send me back home. I do have thanks for the Superintendent, Mr Fink, and to all of his staff, and special thanks to Mr L J Samuel who was instrumental in placing me at Colebrook Home, as it was for younger boys and girls, and I was a teenager.

“Mr Samuels organized a job for me in North Adelaide, at the Institute for the Blind, making brushes. It was for a three month trial, and I ended up working there for 13 years. I travelled from Colebrook Home at Eden Hills to North Adelaide for four years with Mr Radcliffe. I called myself a broomologist.”

Yami moved to Alice Springs with his family in 1970, for an interpreting role with the Uniting Church working with Reverend Jim Downing. Then the Uniting Church supported both of them in establishing the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD). In 1975, Yami was seconded to Everard Park Cattle station (now known as Mimili Community) to organise the stockmen doing cattle work.

In 1979, Yami moved back to Alice Springs to resume work at the IAD as Acting Director, then from 1980-87, Yami was made full-time Director of IAD. He joined the Pitjantjatjara Council Executive to work on the land rights negotiations that culminated in the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act, SA 1981; and later on the Uluru land right claim in the Northern Territory, where Yami was appointed inaugural Chairperson of the Joint Board of Management for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

In 1984, Yami heard a radio interview with Sir Ernest Titterton claiming that Aboriginal Communities had been looked after during the British/Australian Nuclear testing at Maralinga and Emu Junction. Yami became outraged, and resolved to publicly tell his story. His advocacy and testimony contributed to the 1984-5 McClelland Royal Commission, shining a light on the impacts of the testing, and producing a litany of recommendations for environmental clean-up and compensation.

In 1986 Yami was offered a position with Pitjantjatjara Council as a Liaison Officer for APKU Oil Company. He then took up the position of Pitjantjatjara Council Director, until he resigned in 1992 and returned to his homeland at Walatina with his family.

Yami has held a number of other senior roles, including as inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal Employment, Education & Training Committee, and as a Member of the Indigenous advisory panel to the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (producing the 'Bringing Them Home' Report in 1997).  He received a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1981, and his autobiography 'Yami' was shortlisted for the 1993 NSW Premier's Prize.

Yami Lester passed away in July 2017 and was laid to rest on his traditional Country at Walatina Station.

Born at Granite Downs Station (Indulkana) in 1932 to her Yunkunytjatjara mother, Lily, and Irish station manager Tom O’Donoghue, Lowitja O’Donoghue was one of five children removed from her family and placed at Colebrook Home in Quorn at age two by United Aborigines Mission, with whom she later moved to Eden Hills in the Adelaide Hills. Here at Colebrook she was renamed ‘Lois’ by staff, and would not reclaim her birth name Lowitja for many years. It would also be 33 years before she was reunited with her mother, while working at Coober Pedy for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs years into her nursing career.

Lowitja recalls Colebrook Home as highly regimented and strict, where the 35-50 children were largely undifferentiated by the staff, who received affection only from their older peers. Here they were taught religion and discipline, and were not permitted to speak their first languages or learn about their family and culture. Despite this, Lowitja and many of the other children who grew up at Colebrook often speak fondly of their time at the Home, notwithstanding the gross injustice and ongoing impacts of systemic child removal, and whilst she is more critical than some in her recollections of that time, Lowitja also attributes her accomplishments in part to her formative years there.

Lowitja attended the local primary school in Quorn, but after Colebrook Home relocated closer to Adelaide, the children were initially barred from attending the local primary school, instead taught by women from the Red Cross, or the mission sisters, at the Home. She then attended Unley Girls Technical School, achieving her Leaving Certificate at 16, before spending two years working in domestic service to a family in Victor Harbour. Here she met Matron Tuck of the South Coast District Hospital through the Baptist Church, and became attracted to nursing as a career that would provide independence.

Lowitja started nursing training at the South Coast District Hospital with the intention of transferring to the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) to complete her formal training after two years, made necessary by the RAH’s racially discriminatory policies of the day barring Aboriginal women from initiating their training there. When Lowitja did meet with the Matron of the Royal Adelaide to arrange a transfer, she was bluntly told to “go to Alice Springs” to “nurse [her] own people,” despite having never been there!

This precipitated Lowitja’s first foray into Aboriginal activism when she secured a meeting with then Premier Tom Playford, and “any other member of parliament I could possibly get an appointment with,” to prosecute the case for change and open the door for Aboriginal women to pursue nursing. After joining the Aborigines Advancement League and attending meetings in Adelaide every week, this campaign was enlarged to opening up apprenticeship pathways for young Aboriginal men. By the time Lowitja was in her fourth year of nursing, having moved to Adelaide to be closer to the movement, their efforts culminated in a rally at the Adelaide Town Hall garnering positive publicity, and resulting in an invitation for Lowitja to work at the RAH, where she started in 1954. This also paved the way for other Aboriginal women working in country hospitals at the time, some of whom had grown up with Lowitja at Colebrook, to transfer in as well, which they immediately did.

After completing her exams and training, Lowitja was invited to stay on as a staff nurse at the RAH, becoming a charge sister one year later, and remaining there until 1961. Here she thrived, citing her disciplined upbringing as preparing her well for the demands of nursing, especially of that era, until deciding to travel to India as a relief nurse with the Australian Baptist Mission, via a quick course in midwifery at the Queen Victoria Hospital. The ‘Mother Teresa program’ in India became a formative experience for Lowitja, thrust into a challenging role with a great deal of responsibility, and broadening her perspective on colonisation and Indigenous dispossession, which she brought back to Australia in a renewed determination to work with Aboriginal people in community nursing.

Once she did feel ready to join the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, specifically to work in remote areas, Lowitja was deployed to Coober Pedy as a nursing sister/welfare officer, privately harbouring ambitions to reconnect with her mother, as well as working with Anangu. In Coober Pedy she was quickly recognised as ‘Lily’s daughter’ by sight, and before long was travelling to Oodnadatta with her elder sister Eileen to be reunited with their mother, as well as younger half-sisters. Lowitja describes this encounter, and others that followed where she learned more about her family’s lives and traditional culture, as bringing with it a “whole new meaning and … dimension in my life,” resolving in a commitment to become totally dedicated to Aboriginal affairs, and continue to learn about Pitjantjatjara and Yunkunytjatjara culture through her nursing.

In addition to her work at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Lowitja sought to become active in “every Aboriginal movement that there was,” getting involved in NADOC organising, and contributing to the establishment of organisations including the Council of Aboriginal Women of SA, the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, and the Aboriginal medical service (Nunkuwarrin Yunti), built largely on grassroots fundraising and solidarity in the community. As a young, educated and single woman, Lowitja quickly became a leader, particularly around women’s organising. When the first Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs was established in 1972, she accepted a position as Senior Liaison Officer in the new Department, soon becoming the first Aboriginal person in Australia to head a government department as Regional Director. Here she consulted widely with the Aboriginal community, but became frustrated by the lack of responsiveness of the Federal Government and inadequate funding, and ultimately decided to resign and return to Quorn in the Flinders Ranges.

Here she took up a post with the Education Department as an Aboriginal Liaison Officer, before returning to politics outside the department, this time as the first elected Chairperson of the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC). The newly minted NAC was established in 1977 as an elected consultancy body to advise the government on Aboriginal Affairs, or a kind of political lobby as Lowitja saw it, where she could seek to inform government policy from a community perspective outside of government. And yet again, this time under the Fraser Liberal Government, a lack of political will to implement the advice of the NAC hobbled the group, and it was ultimately abolished.

From 1975, Lowitja was also a Director on the board of Aboriginal Hostels Ltd (AHL), later succeeding Charles Perkins as the Chairperson of the Board in 1981. AHL was established in 1973 to provide accommodation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, particularly catering to those moving away from home for study or employment, or to access medical services. In 1984 Lowitja opened a new hostel in Port Augusta named in her honour, citing the occasion as “an important step in Aboriginal Hostels Limited policy of providing temporary accommodation in areas of greatest need.”

Lowitja was additionally South Australia’s sole Commissioner on the inaugural Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) from 1980, administering capital funds for acquiring land for Aboriginal communities and providing finance to Aboriginal individuals and businesses with the object of promoting development, self-management and self-sufficiency. The Commission also provided training for individuals and communities in building capacity in areas such as business management and assessing their needs and priorities, and provided significant funding for projects such as the Gerard Community almond farm in the early-1980s, working with Councillor Colin Cook and others to make it one of the largest almond producers in the state.

Engaged by the Federal Government to consult on a new representative body to replace the defunct NAC, Lowitja was a principal advisor in the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1990, and was elected as ATSIC’s inaugural Chairperson. She is a strong proponent of Aboriginal self-determination, and saw ATSIC as a powerful vehicle for empowering Aboriginal communities to set their own priorities, working with elected regional councils across the country in developing regional and community plans, and funding major programs in housing, health, education, and other areas of need.

As chair of ATSIC, Lowitja led negotiations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and the Keating Labor Government in the development of the Native Title Act 1993 following the Mabo (No 2) High Court decision of the previous year, to ‘provide for the recognition and protection of native title’ arising from Indigenous law and custom; and in the corollary establishment of the Indigenous Land Corporation, empowered by the passage of the Land Fund and Indigenous Land Corporation (ATSIC Amendment) Act 1995. ATSIC also provided funding to a number of Aboriginal organisations across the country to research Native Title claims.

From the early 1990s Lowitja was also a key figure in the reconciliation movement, as a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, from its inception in 1991 to 1996. The Council would travel across the country consulting with communities to advance the process of reconciliation, and prosecuting a positive vision for a future Australia that had fully acknowledged its colonial past and confronted the injustice and dispossession of Aboriginal peoples. A decade of campaigning culminated in the historic ‘Corroboree 2000 People's Walk for Reconciliation’ across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday 28 May 2000, mobilising 250 thousand people in Sydney in the largest political demonstration in Australian history, and spurring similar events across the country over the following months.

She was Chairperson of the Sydney Olympic Games National Indigenous Advisory Committee in 2000, and member of the Sydney Olympic Games Volunteers Committee. Lowitja carried the Olympic torch through Uluru.

Earlier that year Lowitja had delivered the 2000 Australia Day address in Sydney, acknowledging the things Australia does have to celebrate whilst making a strident case for acknowledging the difficult truths of Australian history; that “the racist policies and practices of the past continue to affect every aspect of every Indigenous person’s life”; and that the approaching Centenary of Federation represented a “strategic opportunity for all Australians to learn from the past and redefine ourselves as an harmonious and just society – to map our future as a reconciled nation.” She also took the opportunity to call for the implementation of many of the recommendations of the ‘Bringing Them Home Report’, including constitutional change and a framework of Indigenous Rights; highlighted the issue of growing economic inequality; and recommended changing the date: “Let’s find a day on which we can all feel included, in which we can all participate equally, and can celebrate with pride our common Australian identity.”

In 1997 the Federal Government’s Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program funded the CRC for Aboriginal and Tropical Health with Lowitja as the inaugural chair, bringing together researchers and Aboriginal community organisations to focus on key areas including Indigenous education, health resources and service delivery, and public health. This led to the CRC for Aboriginal Health, and ultimately, the Lowitja Institute Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health CRC (2014–2019), hosted by the Lowitja Institute (where Lowitja O’Donoghue is retained as Patron), with a broad network of 23 institutional partners nationally, including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, the University of Melbourne, and the Commonwealth Department of Health.

She is also a Patron of ‘A Just Australia’, a campaign now managed by the Refugee Council of Australia advocating a compassionate approach to refugees and asylum seekers and changes to government policy.

Over an extraordinary lifetime, Lowitja has been honoured with many awards and acknowledgment, including:

• Member of the Order of Australia (AM) 1976, “in recognition of her work in the welfare field.”
• Advance Australia Award 1982
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 1983
• Australian of the Year 1984, “for her work in bridging the cultural gap between Aborigines and the rest of the community.”
• National Living Treasure 1998
• Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) 1999, “for public service through leadership to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the areas of human rights and social justice, particularly as Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.”
• Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great, by Pope John Paul II, 2005
• NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award 2009

In 2000 Lowitja was made Professorial Fellow at Flinders University. She has served on the South Australian Museum Aboriginal Advisory Committee, and as a Director of the Rio Tinto Aboriginal Fund.

Lowitja is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Nursing, holds Honorary Doctorates of Law from the Australian National University (ANU) and Notre Dame University, and Honorary Doctorates from Flinders University, ANU, University of South Australia, and Queensland University of Technology.