Julianne Schultz - Griffith Review 60: First Things First

Praise for Griffith Review

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Griffith Review editor Julianne Schultz is the ultra-marathoner of Australian cultural life. Canberra Times

SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH was one of Australias great early achievers. Twice the premier of Queensland, that states chief justice and the author of its criminal code, he was best known for his pivotal role in drafting agreements that led to Federation, and as the new nations first chief justice. He was also an important reformer and legislator, a practical and cautious man of words.

Griffith died in 1920 and is now best remembered in his namesakes: an electorate, a society, a suburb and a university. Ninety-six years after he first proposed establishing a university in Brisbane, Griffith University, the citys second, was created. His commitment to public debate and ideas, his delight in words and art, and his attachment to active citizenship are recognised by the publication that bears his name.

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Contents

GriffithReview 60 2018

Griffith Review is published four times a year by Griffith University in conjunction with Text Publishing. ISSN 1448-2924 ISBN 978-1-922212-41-2

Publisher Martin Betts

Editor Julianne Schultz AM FAHA

Co-Editor Sandra Phillips

General Manager Karen Hands

Managing Editor John Tague

Assistant Editor Jerath Head

Editorial Assistant Lauren Mitchell

Business Administration Esha Buch; Louise ONeil

Editorial Intern Sarah Shapiro-Parata

Proofreader Sonia Ulliana

Publication Text Publishing

Text Publishing Michael Heyward, Kirsty Wilson, Jane Finemore

Typesetting Midland Typesetters

Printing Ligare Book Printers

Distribution Penguin Australia

Contributions by academics can, on request, be refereed by our Editorial Board.
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INTRODUCTION

Whispering in our hearts

Time to learn from the past

Julianne Schultz

LONG BEFORE 1873 , when William Christie Gosse discovered the six-hundred-million-year-old sandstone monolith at the centre of Australia and called it Ayers for the about-to-be-deposed South Australian Colonial Secretary Uluru has had symbolic power that outstrips even its imposing physical dimensions. For the Anangu people, custodians for millennia of the deeply spiritual Uluru and nearby Kata Tjuta, life is based on a foundation of law, religion and morals known as tjukurpa, which encompasses the creation period, the present and the future.

Those raised in a Western tradition confront an intellectual challenge when seeking to engage with this ancient way of making sense of the world, where the rocks, caves, boulders, trees and waterholes are evidence of creation by ancestral beings. But as the unsolicited testimonies of countless tourists attest, they feel the power.

For a century after Gosses discovery, the Anangu continued to live on their ancestral lands and survived the archetypical sweep of Australian settlement and land management policies reserves, missions, pastoral leases, national parks. In 1971, a group of Elders met with officials at the Office of Aboriginal Affairs at Ernabella to complain about the impact of pastoralism, mining, tourism and the desecration of sacred sites, and a characteristically complicated, frustrating and protracted legal and political process began. Fourteen years later, the rights to the land of the traditional owners were eventually returned. On 26 October 1985, Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen handed over the title deeds to the Elders, who then signed a ninety-nine-year lease to create a national park under joint management with an Anangu-majority board.

Every year since the handover, its anniversary has been celebrated and appraised for what still needs to be done to ensure that those who live there receive the benefits that are their due. Uluru is one of Australias most iconic sites, the defining image for tourism and trade, recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and for its cultural value, but with unfinished business.