2006 Speeches

Address by TSRA Member for Port Kennedy

Mr Bill Shibasaki

Green Turtle Dreaming Exhibition, Gab Titui Cultural Centre

26 May 2006

May I begin by acknowledging:

• The traditional owners of this land – the Kaurareg People
• Erub Elders present this evening
• Erub Island Council Representatives
• The Green Turtle Exhibition team
• Community Members
• Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you for inviting me here tonight, to be part of the opening of this new and innovative exhibition. 

2006 has been named the International Year of the Sea Turtle, and this exhibition is honouring that title with these images, stories and music of the turtles, following their tales from our own Darnley Island in the Torres Strait, to the seaside villages of Bali, Indonesia. 

This exhibition displays the cultural relationship and significance of turtles with our people, illustrating this through legends involving human tragedy, heroic rescue and displacement, and the feelings of love amongst other things. 

To the Erub Elders and Community, thank you for your contribution and sharing your ancestral legends and connections with the Green Turtle Dreaming team - your stories will be told via this display to centres across Australia and the world. 

To the Green Turtle Exhibition team, thank you for bringing your work here to the Torres Strait’s cultural safe keeping place, Gab Titui. 

Here your display will be viewed and enjoyed by community members, students and visitors – all learning at the same time of the cultural link sea turtles have in our way of life and also highlighting the importance of this endangered species. 

May I take this opportunity to say esso to everyone here tonight who has been involved in making this exhibition possible and on behalf of the Gab Titui Cultural Centre, I officially open this exhibition (cut ribbon). Esso.