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Butchulla Men's Business | |
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| WHY A MONUMENT? |
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The seed for the monument was planted around twenty years ago when a friend was conducting a consultancy project to scope out the tourism potential of Cherbourg. He noticed that every town in the South Burnett had a memorial to citizens who had given their lives defending the British Empire, but nowhere was there anything that recognised the fact that Aboriginal men had died defending Aboriginal country during colonisation. The launch of the "Gallipoli to Armistice" memorial gave me the opportunity to raise this point in front of the Prime Minister, the Premier and Brendan Nelson, then head of the National War Memorial. Both the Prime Minister and Brendan Nelson acknowledged the need, but not offering to do anything about it. It took the courage of a young Fraser Coast Chronicle journalist, Carlie Walker, who picked up the story and kept writing about it until local politicians and Council took notice and agreed to support the idea, which was accepted as a worthwhile project by the Regional Economic Community Forum, to make it happen. In this part of the country, Aboriginal people were impacted fairly early on as the quest for land, timber and gold drew people to the Wide Bay area. Conflict occurred almost straight away and the confrontation between spear and musket was quick and decisive. Nevertheless, even though they were clearly at a disadvantage, Butchulla men resisted as best they could, to the death. As a nation of supporters of the underdog, it has always baffled me as to why Australians are reluctant to acknowledge that Aboriginal men did put up a fight and were in reality, the first men to die protecting Australian soil, in Australia. We don`t know their names, where or when they died, but we do know that they put up a fight. They were our ancestorsand as their descendants, we Butchulla Australians are determined to see that the deeds of these Warriors, who fought and died for their country, are not forgotten. That is why we need a monument. Glen Miller Butchulla Man. |