Parramatta Marist High School,

2 Darcy Road,

Westmead 2145,

Sydney,

3^rd March 2008

AusTender

Australian Government

ACT, 2600,

NSW

Dear AusTender,

Please find enclosed the cover letter for the preamble to the constitution of including Indigenous Austrlians. Our group includes Jason Hourani, Francis Tobias, Andrew Fernandez, Gian Barcelon, and myself (Sherron Peiris). We believe that it is important for us to include the Aborigines in the Constitution as they were the original inhabitants of this land and it would be inhumane to just ignore them like they didn’t even exist.

Firstly, in our preamble we talk about the Dreaming, which is what they believed happened during the creation of the world. This belief may have been destroyed when the Europeans almost forced the Aborigines to believe what they believe in.

Individuals/events including the First Contact between the Aborigines and the Europeans, which was a turning point in the history of the Aborigines as well as the Australian History. Examples include Tania Major who was working on helping young Aborigines get the necessities required for a good life.

Mandawuy Yunupingu who was in a band which explained what it was like in normal Aboriginal life. He was also the first Aboriginal principal and during his reign he made sure that the students learn in both the European’s and Aborignal perspectives.

We also talk about their current issues like how they are being ignored in everyday life and the apology made by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Every Aboriginal enjoyed the speech but also thought that it was a long time coming. Some showed tears of joy while others were just ecstatic.

Yours Sincerely,

Sherron Peiris (Group 1 member)

Preamble

Our Group Believed that we should respect and be friendlier to the Aboriginals, in order to form a more perfect nation; and created this preamble. The Indigenous Australian areas is mostly crowded but it sustains only 27% of the population of Australia. They live in the remote settlements but often located in the site of the former church missions. They suffer an difficult health and economic lifestyle. In the year of 2004, Ex – Prime minister John Howard initiated the contracts with Aboriginal communities, where they mentioned about financial benefits, which they will include for the return of the commitments such as like ensuring children to clean themseleves and to attend school. These is the contract for the Shared Responsibility Agreements. This was seen in a political shift from the ’self determination’ for the Aboriginal communities. With that been criticised as an “Paternalistic and dictatorial arrangement”.

John Howard tried to back up the failures of the previous policies of his government and saying “We must recognise the distinctiveness of Indigenous identity, culture and the right of the Indigenous people to preserve that heritage. The crisis of the Indigenous social and cultural disintegration requires to be an strong confirmed of Indigenous identity and culture as a source of dignity, self esteem and pride.” It happened at the year of 11 October 2007 in the Sydney Institute.

In this preamble, we have mentioned that the federal government of Australia, now led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, presented a speech apologizing to the Indigenous Australians over the Stolen Generations.

Aboriginal people are australia’s indigenous people.the recent government statistics counted approximately 400,000 aboriginal people and about 2% of australia’s population.

Australian Aboriginals migrated from somewhere in Asia at least 30,000 years ago .although they comprise 500-600 distinct groups, Aboriginal people possess some uniflying links such as strong spiritual beliefs that tie them to the land, tribal culture of story telling and art .

The Dreamtime

Aboriginal spirituality entails a close relationship between humans and the land. Aboriginals call the beginning of the world the dreaming or the dreamtime. In the dreamtime Aboriginal ancestors rose from below the earth to form various parts of the nature including animal species bodies of water and the sky.

Unlike other religons, Aboriginal belief does not place human species apart from or on a higher level of nature. Aboriginals believe some of the ancestors metamorphed into nature ,where they remain spiritually alive .

They say Aboriginals have been here for 40,000 years but they have been here for much longer . They have been here since time began they have come directly out of the dreamtime of our creative ancestors. They have kept the earth as it was on the first day and there culture is focused on recording the orgins of life.