“The ACT government has over the last 10 years repeatedly promised to return Boomanulla Oval, a place of enormous significance to the Aboriginal community, to community control but has serially breached each and every undertaking it has made to do so,” writers JULIE TONGS.

On January 26 it will be 237 years since Aboriginal peoples of Australia were first dispossessed of their land, in what is now Sydney, by invaders from Europe who either killed the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land or forced them to flee for their lives.

It will also, this year, be 202 years since the Aboriginal peoples of what is now the ACT were first similarly murdered and/or dispossessed of their lands by foreign invaders.

In a distressing sign of how deeply embedded in Australian society is the willingness to deprive Aboriginal peoples of what is indisputably theirs, including both land and culture, it will this year be 10 years since the ACT Labor/ Green coalition, led by Chief Minister Andrew Barr and a surprisingly willing Shane Rattenbury and his Greens Party, evicted the Aboriginal community of Canberra from Boomanulla Oval, a site of particular significance to the Aboriginal community, and invested its management in an ACT government controlled entity.

Custodianship of Boomanulla Oval was vested in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of Canberra in 1984, ie more than 40 years ago, by the Commonwealth Government.

Interestingly, responsibility for the management of the oval was granted to the local Aboriginal community by none other than Charlie Perkins who was, at the time, the Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

The oval is named in honour of the legendary Mervyn Williams, a great footballer who came to fame as a member of the Redfern All Blacks Rugby League Club. He was known by his Aboriginal nickname “Boomanulla” which means “speed and lightning”.

The ACT government has over the last 10 years repeatedly promised to return Boomanulla Oval, a place of enormous significance to the Aboriginal community, to genuine community control but has, unfortunately serially breached each and every undertaking it has made to do so.

Following the release by the ACT government in 2016, ie nine years ago, of a request for tender to assess the interest, capability and experience of possible proponents to assume management of Boomanulla Oval and its environs on behalf of the Aboriginal community I, with the full support of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Board, engaged a highly reputable local planning and design company to develop a strategic plan for the sustainable indigenous management of Boomanulla Oval.

Following completion of an exhaustive (and reasonably expensive) investigation of possible options for the future of the oval, I submitted, on behalf of the board, a detailed bid to the ACT government.

The Winnunga plan included the development of an education, training and employment facility, a cultural education and keeping place, sports facilities, and low-cost housing-on vacant blocks adjacent to the oval.

Despite the time, effort, deep community consultation and significant time and resources which Winnunga had devoted to the development of a sustainable, vibrant, community-controlled future for the oval and its environs, the ACT government unilaterally and without explanation cancelled the request for tender and has, in the 10 years since, chosen instead, to its great shame, to treat Boomanulla Oval as simply another ACT government asset.

It is quite clear when studying the history of the ACT government’s forced and unwanted control of Boomanulla Oval, a site of unquestioned significance to the Aboriginal community of Canberra, that the old colonial attitudes to the place of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia on their own land are alive and well in Canberra.

It is, of course, not a coincidence that I have chosen to comment on the current status of Boomanulla Oval at a time that the peoples of Australia and indeed Canberra, or at least a majority of them, celebrate Australia Day – the day on which the dispossession of we, the traditional owners and custodians of this land, effectively commenced.

While I am aware that many of those who celebrate Australia Day with genuine pride are sincere in their support of the continuing struggle by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community for justice and equality in their own land, I do question, for example, the deafening silence of the Canberra community on issues such as the spiteful and unjustified actions of the ACT government in locking us out of a place, namely Boomanulla Oval, which we, with justification regard as ours.

In similar vein I am sure you can appreciate why I, and I am sure a majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia cannot but help on “Australia Day” to reflect on the life circumstances of a majority of the members of our community, whether it be health, contact with the criminal justice system, incarceration, employment, education outcomes, housing, children in out-of-home care, life expectancy or the theft of Boomanulla Oval etcetera, etcetera and conclude, with sadness, that we really do have nothing to celebrate about that day.

Julie Tongs is CEO of the Narrabundah-based Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services.