 There were so many ideas that were thrown up by these four presentations that I just thought that I would kick off with a few Questions and please all of you feel free to answer whichever one of you feels ripe to answer the particular question I do think that we have reached a kind of rightness and that ideas do have to reach a sort of rightness to be More widely disseminated and I think that that really was shown a few weeks ago I don't know how many of you saw Bruce Pascoe on my favorite show Gardening Australia talking about kangaroo grass and about how nutritious kangaroo grass is and How Aboriginal people had made damper out of this grass and this grass is treated as a weed these days It's very difficult to harvest and mill But I think that when you see Bruce Pascoe talking about kangaroo grass on Gardening Australia There's something something is happening Carolyn it's I feel so grateful to be alive now in Australia because and the message from my dad was Resilience it's certainly standing up and he saw that the the art industry Aboriginal art industry that dad founded was something that Aboriginal people would always own and it was always a great industry for people to be able to participate on Community and that was all we did we just used my dad's model of significant mentorship And so I can see that this food that we have will bring people in the same way To the table together to have those calm discussions About how we can work together for the future. It's very simple It's simple, but it's also quite quite a challenge and quite complicated And I think that you know the pioneers that I talked about before Like the Kirschers found that there was what they called an ick factor and there was what John Newton I think you say Jopoul Brinator called an experience an element a degree of food racism that Manifested in that people rejected the kind of witchity grubs that they thought They thought that's what indigenous food was and they didn't want to know they didn't want to try it How do we get past that prejudice now today when when we first started out back pride in 2001? We felt it the best way to support remote communities was to make value-added products that had long shelf life and to make it Really simple not terribly testicle at all. You know if you've got quantum jam on the label It's bloody quantum jam And and so it was important to get that taste factor out there But now of course the people the public want to have the leaf they want to actually taste what it's like fresh And so that's why we're so very deeply involved with outback pride fresh Which is the production side of it, but first up in 2001 we were suffering greatly from Nice chap that he is Liz Hiddins with the funny hat, you know the bush Tucker man And he really gave you the impression that you wouldn't want to eat this shit out in the bush You'd have to be dying if you ate that and he'd take you know army survivalist. Oh, yeah, come out here Oh, you know cook this with a rock and then throw that out and eat the rock So it was really hard work to come face-to-face with that and and so we've met so many heroes to us like Kylie and lots of you people out here that take the risk with the food and presented in such a very respectful way to bring First Nation peoples with the food I Was wondering police or whether you'd like to say a little bit more just elaborate on the thing that we talked about last week about this Kind of simpatico element of flavor between the southern Thai food and the indigenous foods that you're growing and experimenting with now certainly and Let's start off with today. I learned from Gail here that there's a native basil which is Literally akin to holy basil which we grow and cultivate on our farm The fragrance the aroma the texture of it is almost identical and as Gail has said It was possibly brought over brought over to outback Queensland by early spice traders As the same as the Rosella have been but this is pre-European contact but dr. Rod Drew who was a chair of the ISMS which is he's the Tropical fruit chair kind of international body. He he's a Horticulturalist up in Queensland He I remember going to symposium where he said that you know the same species occur Here in Australia, especially the fun off fun off Queensland Darwin area that occur all along Thailand in the southern parts of Thailand all the way up to Middle Thailand and also Penang Sorry, Malaysia and Indonesia and I thought at that light bulb moment thought I just thought wow That's why I can totally relate to this food that I you know the bush foods that we eat here It's a good old Sam fire that they've been Pickling and eating in in Europe and England for hundreds and hundreds of years there There is a joining of those subspecies, but they have adapted in Australia All the spices there's a lot of studies which is them the little pillies Which is actually relative to the wax jambu All these trees You know, they're very familiar to to my flavor profile palette anyway because I grew up eating this and so the astringency the bitterness The harsh, you know, I love it. They're very full flavors and they're very relatable to You know our Thai cuisine. It's medicinal you've got to eat it in small quantities, but It makes up a hole which is extremely fulfilling I wanted to ask you Nicole What you think is the narrative that we need to sort of get the story of This kind of food this kind of conversation tonight That's been kind of missing from the dialogue so far because one of the things that John Newton mentioned is in His book is a Malaysian report that says that communities that share food that that sharing food is a way of bridging all sorts of gaps of misunderstanding and that that Ethnicities that share each other's food live more harmoniously together Have you got any thoughts about that both in terms of your sort of creative part of your life and your legal part of your life? such a good question I For the last few days have had my head buried in Dark emu and the biggest estate on earth and for those of you who have not read those books I would urge you to because they are brilliant and the message that comes very clearly from both books is that In order to know this place in order to become an Australian you actually need to know the land and The people who mastered this over the several thousands of years are Aboriginal people So in order for us to truly become Australians we have to actually appreciate Aboriginal knowledge systems and The genius of Aboriginal knowledge systems is Is just truly remarkable and I think that I I yes, I simply can't reduce the incredible words in in both books on the podium tonight, but I would urge all of you to to read those books Uncle Max, would there be a particular food, you know You talked about the fish and you talked about the spearing of the fish and you talked about the gathering of the berries Once you've shaken the tree three times Is there a particular food from your childhood? Growing up that you remember as the most delicious taste was there one particular thing that you love to eat From from the bush tucker That you would share with us tonight Is this heaps It's just heaps of stuff and I turn numerous to mention Yeah, yeah, you got different berries you got you got different saps of trees Yeah, you got different leaves. You got different grasses and and roots of grasses say That's all your vegetation stuff and and you you know some of the sweetest witchy grubs come from the come from the the bottom of the of The of the Australian wattle, you know once you start digging around there, you know if you look at a if you look at a Wattle tree that is that is look like if it's all done got all that brown stuff coming out You know, that's the land talking to you and it's telling you know, bust me open and you'll and you'll have food I'm a cupboard and and so so you get those witchy grubs out of there and you Just put them on a on a bit of saying oh for For people who would go. Yeah, I don't eat that move and thing but once you put that on on on on On a hot plate and just roll it like that and put it between a Bit of bread and but you know, you don't have to use butter because they keep it becomes butter it becomes a butter and cheese and And he you have the you have this wonderful thing that that people will screw screw their faces up at you know and and and and because there's there's The old just just the old you know that that that that greedy slimy Ali You know, but what is rewarding you treacherous thing that is you know And and how you get it how you take it, you know you just It's It it's a it's a wonderful meat, you know to to be able to eat but Cooking fish, you know, you don't have to you know, you don't have to Got a fish your scale of fish all you do is just just just ask the earth for for a bit of clay Pat the clay all around it stick it in the fire and and when you think it's cooked Just open open all the coals up and tap tap the fish with the stick if it's hard you're right So you just pull the fish out open the crust and all the scales are gone and And the and the gut it is the gut is about as big as your little fingernail See so so the hard work has gone out of a simple way of Cooking but to give but to give that that taste, you know You just grab a couple of leaves or probably just you're just a grass or something other you just Stick that leaves within the you know first and then and then all the clays around it and stick it And you can you can cook a lot of stuff like that see it's it's such a wonderful way in In and and doing it because once you see once you see the land talking to you You know that there's plenty of food around That's why you call it nature's supermarkets. That's why I call it the super market Yeah, it's just I want you once you go out. Yeah, once you go out into the supermarket, you know you You're looking at level or you're looking you're looking down See, it's not like it's not like when you're walking around in Woolies You're gonna look up the Allah that and run into some poor Creature with your trolley and it never and your supermarket never closes Yeah, you just you just keep walking and you look down and and and the land is telling you see Your land tells you where the food is the land tells you what fish are moving See and and just all those simple simple little things like that, you know People say, oh, we better go and get some fish now. Look here. Look this fella here showing us I want to say this fellow and that fella see that's the relationship we have with the land That's the relationship we have with the plant life and the trees so On the land and I don't mean you know on it with money But own it with spirit and soul and knowledge and acknowledge it. Let it know what you're doing. Don't rape it Don't rape it and destroy it. It's it's there to provide us with things and And once we do these kind of things then we decide is the till you know, not the tree down till the land and And and and rape the land and then go so all the trauma going banker up You know for trying to try and to grow things to get rich, you know, we only need to grow food To to to food our hunger Gail can you just talk a little bit about you know This is this is sort of one end of the story and then another part of the story with you Which is about the supply, you know the food ways in terms of the growing of the food in the remote communities And an outback pride and how it gets to the restaurants. Can you just explain that kind of? Connection we we really rely on the the support of the the chefs. Thank you guys for buying our product because We can then Put that resource back into our bush work As you know, we've we've put a lot of this in but it's it's about Give it away to keep it, you know, that's that's that's probably right You're probably right. I've always felt that it's it's child abuse to leave your money to your children What you have to do is leave them resilience and ability to make their own way in life But if you measure everything, I don't leave a minority. Yeah, and so if you value your life on money You need to feed your soul in different ways But yes with us If our bush work is very particular and we talk a lot about capacity building more than anything else and We're very philosophical about what happens. We don't impose our stories on any communities We we get asked very clearly and we go and and see the people and meet them first and see If we feel that they really want to do the work Or whether they're just being told by the bureaucrat to do the work And so yes, we make friends out on community and so we The last six weeks, I guess we've driven 10,000 kilometers, which is normal for for us Mike is 70 and we've just cut back to 60 hours a week because we're going slow now and Yes, we we realize that it's it's getting More difficult to do that our nursery really quick nursery for our drive from Adelaide We have to plant 3000 plus seedlings every week there to keep our Supply chain of fresh leaf going we handpick 50 ton a year And send out to you wonderful friends And we employ a lot of people there including the First Nations people But our bush work has to be specifically about Making things relevant to them if we drive to two and a half days to get to Clara heart community Which is 100 kilometers north of Burke? We're not going to be able to supply fresh product from them And so the products from the bush have to be fruits that can be dried or snap frozen And long-term crops for them if you're one of those wonderful people that follow me on outback pride fresh Instagram You'll see that we've started the harvest of the cutturer or bush tomato at Clara heart and in amongst that we've planted Quandong trees which are a long story and so that's what it has to be about capacity building for the future and For the young people to be able to carry this forward But we we called the business outback pride Because the young children and people that I played with in the 1950s eating these We're more literate and numerate than the people of today And I find it a total shame to our whole society that this is happening. And so we're focusing on education for people and to Build an industry where remote communities can access the same way as the art industry Where people can access a fully fledged industry that is totally has certified and a very slick Supply chain and a lot of our wonderful friends contact me often and say, well, can you just get me a box? To my restaurant at you know back of Uluru or wherever And I have to very politely Let them down because if I'm taking one little box to a restaurant anywhere I'm on the road to bankruptcy Because I'm not concentrating on the actual production of the product that we're giving and we understand a very basic model of business and we talk to The people out on community about this 50% of your business has to be on some sort of creation some sort of production 50% the other 50% has to be to fill in those dots for government, you know the work cover Superannuation all of those things that you need to do all of the paperwork and the marketing They're getting the word to the public so for some of these remote communities their whole effort is put into Providing the production of the plants that we've taken to them and showing them how to manage them And so we bring their product pay them top dollar for that back into the central place at Reedy Creek and then you know Sort of package it under our HACCP system and send it out with the biggest supply chain And so that's you know saving them the worry of individual Marketing and promotion, but yes, I say kindly to our friends leave us to do this really important work and We send pallets to our distributors and it's up to the distributors to run the boxes to you We can't do that Okay, I get a sense that you will have plenty of questions to ask so if you've got a question for Speakers raise your hand and we will find you in the dark and we will bring a microphone to you. I believe So has someone got a question that they would like to Address to anyone on the panel John. Are you still here? Yes Have you got a particular question that you were going to ask us I was going to ask you about you have a wonderful idea a Really positive idea about how we could change Australia Day into something different Which is sort of modeled on the American idea of Thanksgiving and is about us sharing the abundance of this land and Eating together. I was wondering whether that was something you might like to Comment on or expand or elaborate on if we can get a microphone to you. I have a microphone I Sort of went off that idea. It sounded a little bit like white fellas telling black fellas what to do I Learned from Somebody called mother will be well be a wonderful phrase walking together We have to walk together and we have to eat together. We have to work together So it's got to be something. It's been done. It has to be done across Across the two cultures So I think it's a good idea I think the basic idea came from the thought that we could sit down at the table and eat together and eat Food together and it's always a good way to It's always a good way to to learn about each other's each other's cultures, but it's got to come somehow from a place which is Mutual rather than No from from from one side Did you have a question for anyone on the panel or would you like to pass your microphone on? I'll pass my microphone. I have any questions. I've been fascinated by listening to To to all of you and sitting next to Amy chatter who I didn't didn't know so much about Someone else got the microphone Thank you very much. Um, this is a question for uncle max I'm just curious like we're talking about indigenous food here tonight and there was a conversation around Interrelatedness and the importance of that in terms of the sacred with indigenous culture So my question to you in what we've talked about and listen to tonight Where does the cultivation of indigenous foods for? European or non-European People to bring into their food and their diets. Where does that sit with the sacred and what are your thoughts and feelings on that? Yeah, that sits on the land, you know, you say to me it's the land No, and that's where the food grows See the mother gives birth to everything and people don't realize that once we start to learn about Learn about where our foods come on and start to look at it So so I'd like like you'd nurtured under that see I have something I have a plan even that That that that that people are destroying but but but if If someone came and and sat down and and sat at a square table With me not the round table without a square table with me I can I can talk about I can talk about the land that has been overused and abused But I got stuff that could go there and grow there to Revitalize that see and sit up instead of getting these What I don't have to chemicals or whatever they are To stick in the land to grow. There's a natural stuff see the line talks to us The land is the greatest teacher of all so we're gonna sit and really look at this land and have that to respect for the land and Communicate see and you can you communicate with with with your eyes to what's there? And this is why I talk about this is this is when I talk about the sacredness in that respect So it's very important You go deeper deeper into your communication With with this wonderful thing that we call earth saying we're gonna we're gonna stop a lot of this this Brain eating didn't put this on to make our things grow. We got natural things and I run he talked to my niece about this tonight. We got natural things to vary what he to I will you put there and grow and and and and And then put our then put our seeds in our plants and that see We can use that then we can put it in in in other other Lands or other soils and that where people say that one grow there that one grow there You know, I've got something that I can put in it'll grow there all right, you know And this is the kind of thing that that'll that'll give the plant life And and and your foods are good thing to grow So but it's it'll be only and it'll be only for the indigenous foods and that I'm not I'm not looking to do commercial stuff. If someone is feeding come on after sit down with me and really talk I Have two ears and I've got 80 two year old brain that can listen a little bit. So yeah So I'll I'll do that thing, you know, say it's about what you put in there What do you put into there? How how you do this fellow this pasco fellow? I'm teaching him. He's my student For goodness sake Can I just thank you for that question that was very relevant and certainly Very dear to my you know, I'll give you an answer Yeah, very good Yeah And so I'm incredibly grateful not only for my father teaching me about resilience, but also teaching me about Appropriate and generational engagement Respectfully with First Nations people. So there's a lot of politics involved with how to approach people in right way Uncle you'll back me up on that and so which I was taught very carefully. So for example out in the pit in Jarland's Where the place has been? raped my uncle's terminology by White mismanagement when we were asked to go in and sit down with communities We did just that I sat in the dirt and we spoke to people over many visits Because you don't just do the white fella thing and come in and point. Hey fellas, you go and do you know This is what the government workers do. They say fellas you come and do go and do agriculture over there And then they go away and they're shiny Cruises and come back 12 months later and said nothing there. You're bloody useless, aren't you and So instead of doing that we would find out from people what their Sacred plants were and They are never grown on that community, but they're preserved And a lot of the community members said they they felt that that the white Forages were very disrespectful coming into their country and picking things without Permission and I've always said to them the thing that is your part of your mother earth Belongs to you for community use But if you want to have a project so that your young fellas can have a job We set it up like inside a fence like a white fella job so that it's not You know sort of mistaken for taking the the natural stands and that's really really important The sacred is also Extremely universal right like it's applicable everywhere it's a mentality and a way of approaching your life and your lifestyle and waste and Conservatism Being on the land has really taught me so much of that and there was a big decision for us to take the cows off The land so the cows have been off the land for a year and since that year we've just noticed Everything growing back and cleaning up itself like the riparian What a way has just run clear again, and there are eels in there the Calistimons are coming up and You know in in fairness for the government. They do do good things Landcare has come on board and Volunteered funds so that we could replant, you know native species again So we can put native bees that well, we've got native bees on the farm But to actually for native bee production honey, so honey production I Think the sacred is in all of us and we are and we are extremely responsible to practice that that awareness every day What we eat how we choose to tread what we grow what what we can it's so easy to destroy a lot harder to grow and to maintain another question Hello, I've got a microphone here. I've got a microphone over here on your right Hi, my question is how do we scale up? So here we are in Sydney moving towards doubling of the population by 2050 Towards a mega city of 10 million people We're a road in Cumberland Plain, which are the ecological systems of which our indigenous knowledge food systems are gathered from Our peri-urban landscape here only supports 20% of the perishable foods that we get in the supermarket So we walk in the door only 20% of those foods already come from the metropolitan area the rest are from other regional areas How do we bring the ideas of Gale, Pelika, Uncle Max? How do we bring that to the Eurora Nation in the within the boundaries of the Hawkesbury and the Pean and the George's River to create a true indigenous ecological sustainable food network for this mega city by mid-century The thing I'm incredibly passionate about is Yes upskilling the industry I Was devastated when I realized that it took 40 years From when my father started working on the Aboriginal art industry For the federal government to actually stand up and support it as a proper industry So that's the catch 22 in this you actually need to get many ethical growers that engage with their local first nations people To to start and I mean it could start in this room that you all go away with passion I love the whole idea where restaurants have their kitchen garden and You know you should grow more native foods in your kitchen garden. I know are you a chef or are you a gardener? It's hard to kind of break that down if you don't have a lovely daughter lovely daughter like this Yeah, but but yes just that will an intent of people To be a foundation of the industry that is cemented by ethics That is just so important and I give you my love for that If you want to keep going on that story Gail One of the things that you told me on the phone last week was whenever you apply for federal government funding For a bush Tucker officer in communities you get turned down and yet You know the parallel that you make with art is so interesting because now it's a given that we we know that most remote Indigenous communities will have an art officer and you're arguing for the same thing for bush Tucker Why is it not happening? We we gave up on the the whole federal Government thing in just before 2008 when they were just not interested in the bush Tragically and all we were we were putting a lot of proposals forward to the government to to have a bush Tucker officer on community standing next to the native of the arts officer, which was the model of my dad and Government is generally okay about building a few fences a little bit of low infrastructure But they won't give jobs so we realized I mean you never sit around and whinge about something You just get up and you do it and so we focused on you lovely people knowing that we would be able to grow the critical mass in the industry more if you wonderful heroes are Interpreting native foods in such a respectful way that it will become more mainstream So there's a catch-22 here in this You need the bulk for it to be a proper industry covered by proper food safety Regulations to fit into modern food society But you also need the plants in the ground and you can get the occasional little plant from a retail nursery But you know we know full and well if we're going to keep producing the amount of fresh leaf we have we have to You know select seed and plants before for us to be able to just plant that sort of quantity every week if you grow a carrot in Your commercial farm organic and beautifully you still send off to the seed merchant And you buy so many kilos of that particular carrot You can't do that in the native food industry Sorry Talk talk about the government, you know, hey, how's that you know clothing the gap They're clothing the gap all right. They're clothing the gap on the industries that that is That that has not been proper problem propagated. I got an idea over here Got it probably got an answer or a question for you to have been in the in the industry for about 50 years You know my sister girl over here, you know and in Tell them sis what you've been in First of all, I'd like to thank Kylie Kylie's part of my family and Paul and her mom and Lisa and John I'm only barrel everybody None is any barrel. I've been in red from for the past 50 odd years, right? I came from the country a small country town When I was 16 years of age, I had no rights We lived on the block the block was our home the elders looked after us They kept us safe. We all went out to work. We didn't have a choice We did cleaning Biscuit factories or whatever job we had to get we got very little money I've been in the workforce since I was 15 or 14 years old when I was at home in Walgreens, New South Wales where I come from I Went out to work. I got $5 a week my kids laugh at me now because they're getting big dollars They're all educated and I think education is the key for everybody. It doesn't matter where you come from I've traveled a bit now in my senior years and I'm a foodie I've lived off the land I know how to go and find water because my oldest taught me that I know how to cook our food I've taken it out there Taking me 30 years of my life to get it out there into industry I'm still doing it. I run a hospitality training school where I teach hospitality To our kids and our adult people find them employment That's big part of it and Kylie's always been a big support for me and the other people around their goals she didn't realize I was here this evening she was only a young woman and She's always been a big support to our community gale and everybody's sitting up on the panel So I've seen it all done it all But the thing for all Australians to do is to come together Work together to make it happen for our kids to get an education because in my school to me our policy is and Is if you have education you have a voice you have a choice And once they've got that then we can go out and work together when I went home to my hometown I can see the waterways are being Clean now and cleaned up and all the back Where I used to we used to grow bush tucker or get it off the riverbeds or like uncle said over here we lived off the land and I still know how to do that and I know how to do modern cuisine So I've been there done it all. I do one. I do one my own catering company as well. So I'm a business woman I do bush tucker. I've taken it to corporate world now with my Students they're all learning that now. So I'm getting it out there It's a big journey for all of us But the main thing is we all have to come together and support one another to make it happen Otherwise, it doesn't happen and while ever we're destroying Mother Earth taking things out of us She'll get back at us all over the world. You will see floods You will see bushfires. You will see drowses. You will see all that and nobody ever thinks about that and In Sydney if you go to Clark Island, you will find fish traps over there If you want to go and have a look but people don't know that At the opera house that was our fishing place when I was a 16 year old girl would go down there with fish So we caught fish there the pollution in Sydney Harbour now is shocking It's destroying the fish destroying everything so I've seen it all I've done it all but I'm still here Thank you and You young lady, you're bright and Kylie knows it too because we always say Foods are similar sweet and sour. Yes, and that's the taste and that's the flavor of our food because Aboriginal people The only sweets we ever got was the natural honey And that's we never ate We had a healthy diet and I'm bringing that back into my to the young people that I teach Because I have to be healthy to survive and food is the way so Everybody eats otherwise. You don't survive. Thank you I wonder whether Kylie you might just like to come up as a someone who's been an industry leader and tonight We've eaten some salt bush dumplings and we've eaten some wallaby and we've eaten some other things where you really have integrated indigenous foods into your menus in a very Radical and imaginative way. I think you should come up and probably close this evening with a couple of remarks Maybe about how you see things going forward. So would you like to just come up and say something? Thank you. Thank you very much everyone. I hope you've enjoyed tonight. I certainly have. Thank you auntie barrel I love you. I love that dress so cool and Of course auntie barrel and uncle max and gale have been great Inspirations to me over many years in fact uncle max. It's so lovely to be with you tonight. I actually first met uncle max about let me think 11 years ago and I was on of all things an amazing Zen Buddhist retreat one weekend down south and the teacher was the teacher Zen Roshi Susan Murphy and of course uncle max was Co-teaching with Susan that weekend and that's how I first learned of uncle max and I remember you took us for an amazing walk into the bush And that's when I first heard you say that amazing term The ancient supermarkets See that fella over there. He'd say that's what I call the ancient, you know the ancient bakery That's the lolly shop and so on and then who would who would you know know that you know back in 2010 Joanna civil you're here tonight the amazing Joanna civil who was the Festival director of the first Sydney International Food Festival She invited René to Australia René Redsepe who spoke and that's of course when I became very aware of Native ingredients and so on and and ring Mike and Gale the next day and so the rest of his history in terms of How long I've been using bush foods at Billy quang But yes, I've been you know, I mean when I first discovered native ingredients some eight years ago It was some well eight years ago for me. It was like discovering a whole new culinary alphabet I'd been cooking Cantonese style food all my life. I'd been you know in 2010. I'd been cooking what for what was it? 20 years or so and To come across the amazing as you said police are the amazing intense distinct and unique Textured and flavoured and and aromatic native bush foods was Absolutely incredible. It changed my life. It changed my my whole way of thinking in the restaurant and the way we do things and Not only was it a culinary Experience and explosion it also made me delve deeper into Who I was and where I'd come from and this amazing country and land So I won't go any further, but look I'd really like to thank all of you Caroline. Thank you It's been a great pleasure to work with you Uncle Max Nicole police a gale. Thank you very much for the effort and for all of the inspiration and the knowledge. Thank you