February 21 was International Mother
Language Day, a day dedicated to
celebrating, preserving and protecting languages of all peoples. In the week
leading up to the day, media reported that, late last year, NT MLA Bess Price
was told off by house speaker Kezia Purick for using Warlpiri, her first
language, in Parliament.
Purick told Price “the language of the
assembly is English”, although it remains to be seen where, exactly, that rule
is written down. Around one third of the Northern Territory population is
Aboriginal, and Warlpiri is one of the stronger NT languages, with around 3000
people still speaking it. In the NT, there is a daily ABC Radio news broadcast
in Warlpiri (and another one in Yolngu Matha).
The news about Price being denied the right
to speak her language came shortly after PM Malcolm Turnbull’s February 10 Closing the Gap report, which once again
showed the extent to which Australian governments are failing the first people
of this country. Turnbull started his speech in Ngunnawal, the language of
Canberra’s Aboriginal people.
Australia: where the leader of a racist
government can use a few words of an Aboriginal language while brushing over
the ongoing impacts of colonisation and racism, while an Aboriginal MLA gets a
dressing down for speaking her language, the language of her constituents.
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