STATEMENTS ON SIGNIFICANT MATTERS
Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for the Arts, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship and Leader of the House) (09:03): Today I pay tribute to an extraordinary woman and personal friend, Rhoda Roberts, AO. Rhoda Roberts was a trailblazer in the media and across the creative arts and a fierce advocate for First Nations culture and voices.
Rhoda was a proud woman of the Bundjalung Nation. But I start with Rhoda's role in my part of Sydney. Rhoda was a baby in the suburb of Canterbury and a student at Canterbury Girls High, and when Rhoda worked as a nurse, she worked at Canterbury Hospital.
About a decade ago, when my part of Sydney felt it was very much at risk when there was an attempt in this parliament to weaken the protections against racial hate speech, we held a big walk, called the Walk for Respect, and Rhoda was there. Thousands of people turned up to walk through the streets of Lakemba to respond to that simple principle of modern multicultural Australia: to treat each other with respect.
In the front row of the march, holding the Aboriginal flag, was Rhoda Roberts. However, I first didn't meet her in my part of Sydney; I first met her on Bundjalung country. My first conversation with her was immediately after she had offered that classic piece of generosity we call a welcome to country.
Subsequent to that, I would see Rhoda at various music festivals. Skye, whom I'm married to, and I would set our watches the moment we arrived and got out of the car at any festival to see how many minutes it would be before we'd run into Rhoda Roberts. She was everywhere and she was loved.
There'd be thousands of people at a festival, but you would run into Rhoda within minutes. She was always central and she was always enabling others, including, and very clearly, the First Nations artists who were there. When I look at the role that Rhoda played in festivals and I look at her role as head of Indigenous programming at the Sydney Opera House, it becomes obvious that she paved the pathway for First Nations First in Australia's national cultural policy.
Perhaps the grandest of stages, in terms of the arts, that there is for anyone is the opening of an Olympics. There is no other moment when so many eyes of the world are watching the same artistic event, and, for the Sydney Olympics, when the world was watching us, it was Rhoda's choreography that was shown to the world. She took us on her journey through ocean and fire so we could truly understand the land that we were on and what this land has always been.
In that moment, there was an opening not just of an Olympics but of a capacity for people to see themselves, for Australians to see each other and for Australians to realise the centrality of First Nations as both the story of this country back to the first sunrise and the opportunity and strength of culture in this country. Cultural policy, so much of it, became possible that night because of Rhoda Roberts.
For every step Rhoda took forward, she took a generation of people with her. There are generations of artists who credit Rhoda as being the catalyst for their careers. From her work with the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust and her appointment on the inaugural First Nations arts board within Creative Australia to her recent performance at the Sydney Opera House with My Cousin Frank, Rhoda never stopped backing First Nations talent, stories and creativity.
I want to thank those who run the Sydney Opera House for making sure that, at the final performance of My Cousin Frank, we effectively were given the opportunity to give speeches like this while Rhoda was in the room. It was a celebration of Rhoda's life, and too often, with Australians of her calibre, it's not until after we've lost them that all of these words are said.
It was one of the most special events I'll ever attend. We had a series of people, in the presence of elders, who really mattered to Rhoda give their tributes while she and her family were in the room listening. We have more creativity because of Rhoda Roberts.
We have Australians dreaming bigger—and I use the word 'dreaming' very deliberately—because of Rhoda Roberts. We have an understanding of our nation which is deeper because of Rhoda Roberts. And today, as a member of my local community, as an Australian, as someone who was watching that opening ceremony on TV and as someone who has had my life touched in so many ways, but also as a representative of the government of Australia, I say: Rhoda Roberts, you are respected, you are revered, we are grateful for you.
You are loved. May she rest in peace.