Tracing the history of the struggle for Indigenous Land Rights is a big ask in a single stand-alone documentary. Part of the story was explored, of course, in the landmark seven-part SBS series First Australians created by Rachel Perkins and released in 2008.
That series stretched back to 1788, but ended, however, with Koiki Mabo’s pivotal and successful legal challenge to the doctrine of terra nullius in 1993.
Without the luxury of 420 minutes to tell her story, Larissa Behrendt, on the other hand, has set herself some different parameters. One Mind, One Heart covers an extended period – 1963 up to the present day – but it does so through the framework of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions.
These Petitions were a response to the arrival of mining companies in Arnhem Land, Far North Queensland, a decade previously. The miners were chasing the lure of bauxite (from which aluminium is extracted), and the Yolŋu people of Yirrkala were completely blindsided by their arrival.
Watch the One Mind, One Heart trailer.
Unsurprisingly, there was zero consultation with these First Peoples, let alone requests for mining rights. As the Yolŋu became increasingly alarmed by the destruction they were witnessing of their lands and sacred sites, the Yirrkala Bark Petitions were their first formal attempt to regain recognition of their land rights.
Delivered to the Australian Government in August 1963, the first Petition was dismissed as not being representative purely because it wasn’t signed Yolŋu Elders but by young people: nine men and three women. The consideration that the Elders were not English literate and only the younger members of the community knew how to sign their names in the colonisers’ language was totally ignored.
A second document inscribed with the Elders’ thumbprints followed, with slightly more acknowledgement of the Yolŋu People’s land rights claims, but no lasting legal success.
Fifty years and countless other legal challenges and historical moments later (including Mabo’s momentous legal triumph in 1992), the Petitions remain hugely important cultural artefacts that now all reside on permanent display – two in Parliament and one in the National Museum. Or do they? A couple of years ago, a fourth Petition was discovered in the possession of a nonagenarian WA woman who was planning to leave it to her daughters in her will.
With Dhunggala Mununggurr the sole surviving original signatory of the document at that point, the urgency of retrieving the Petition and returning it to Country was palpable.
One Mind, One Heart: moving
All of this is recounted and illustrated in Behrendt’s thoughtful and moving film, which boasts a judicious amount of informative archive footage, along with well chosen talking heads covering the details of the quest for repatriation, and giving a clear overview of the struggle for land rights recognition over last 50 years at the same time.
One Mind, One Heart comes right up to the present day to convey not just the widespread pain and crushing disappointment caused by the Voice to Parliament referendum result (and the ensuing sinking realisation of the racism that continues to blot our national landscape), but also the resilience and determination of those most hurt and affected by that result.
There are several stirring and emotionally powerful moments in the film – including the response from the aforementioned 90-something Joan McVie when approached about the fourth Bark Petition by a group of Yolgnu representatives, including Yananymul Mununggurr (Dhunggala Mununggurr’s daughter).
As a viewer, you can’t help feeling, if she can get it, why couldn’t the other 60% of Australians who voted ‘No’ during that oh-so divisive referendum?
Really – what were they thinking?
One Mind, One Heart premieres on SBS and SBS On Demand on 19 January 2025.
Actors:
Director:
Larissa Behrendt
Format: Movie
Country: Australia
Release: 19 January 2025
