00:00Straight talking, spiritual, political. Dr Gondara is being remembered as a humanitarian
00:09who never gave up in his long struggle for Aboriginal empowerment.
00:13You know I always say I'm a colour blind person. I love all Australia and I love all human
00:20beings.
00:21He's always been a battler and a person who is for his people.
00:29The leader of East Arnhem Land's Dooralee clan nation in the remote Northern Territory,
00:34Dr Gondara walked tall in two worlds as both a cultural elder practising his ancient Yolngu
00:40lore and in the Christian church. Dr Gondara was Australia's first Methodist Minister of
00:46Aboriginal Heritage. His life's journey recently the subject of a big screen documentary.
00:53And when he started sharing his life story with me I just thought wow we have a Gandhi
01:00in our own country and his humility is the reason why not many people know about him
01:09because he's so humble.
01:11Dr Gondara was the chairman of the Arnhem Land Progress Association for 30 years, a
01:16role through which he advocated tirelessly for the economic equality of his people.
01:22He's done so much for his people for the last 40, 50 years to gain justice and freedom
01:37in Australia, in this country.
01:39A political fighter, Dr Gondara was unafraid of calling out the failures of his own church
01:45and of government policy, particularly the Howard government's NT intervention which
01:51he saw as a racist and discriminatory regime and led him to travel the world to places
01:57like the United Nations and raise his concerns.
02:01What the Shorab government is this? What are they really doing? Do they really want to
02:06sit and talk?
02:07A man who stood by his values, Dr Gondara opposed the NT's world first euthanasia laws
02:13in the 1990s and more recently spoke out against an enshrined voice to parliament, instead
02:20continuing on his decades-long pursuit for a treaty.
02:23It's very important that everybody must treat it equally with the justice, God-given justice
02:32to all of us.
02:33A clear-eyed vision for Yungal power and authority passed down to the next generation.
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