On Tuesday 23rd December, ACFO Craig Williams invited officers and staff at the Northern District Office (NDO) to take part in an Acknowledgement of Country, delivered by Rhiannon Roberts-Hartley, a proud Bundjalung Nation woman currently working at NDO.
The acknowledgement was held ahead of the end-of-year team meeting on Wurundjeri Country in Bundoora — a Woiwurrung word meaning “the plain where kangaroos live.” A reminder, with Eastern Grey kangaroos still moving through the area and into the nearby Plenty Gorge.
The Northern District Office sits beside a Red Gum reserve, home to trees two to three hundred years old, standing strong as new infrastructure is built around them — a powerful link between the old and the new, the past and the present.
Further cultural insight was shared by Station Officer / MLO Owen Butler, a proud Wiradjuri man, who spoke about the significance of Country. What is now Plenty Road was once an Aboriginal highway — one of the Five Songlines leading out of Naarm — following the Plenty River through a landscape rich with culturally significant sites that firefighters continue to monitor as the fire season approaches.
Station Officer / MLO Owen Butler reminded those present that First Nations sovereignty over Australia was never legally or spiritually surrendered.
