Aboriginal people are coming here from far and wide, and I think people come
here as a celebration of our survival, in spite of all the things that have
happened to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, so we've come to share in that.

Yabun; it's a great gathering for the Aboriginal people. I come every year, because what's happening today is something that everyone in Australia should know about.

We love our family, you know, we'll use this time to meet up with each other,
catch up, you know, because we all live in different parts of everywhere.

The reason why we came to Yabun today was to celebrate Aboriginal Torres
Strait Islander culture, you know, we know that we come and we support our family ties, but our strengths are in our connectedness, our community, our families, and our country. Our country gives us strength wherever we're from. I'm a proud Gurindji, Mutpura and Mariu man; my people are up in Northern Territory.

I'm up from Arnhem Land, Southeast Arnhem Land, and Kalkadoon tribe from Mount Isa.

I'm Dunghutti Nation, so Mid North Coast.

I'm actually Torres Strait Islander and we're from Badu Island.

Just the connection to Land kept our connection to our people, the strength
the resilience that we've had over all the years, just how proud everyone is
to celebrate their cultures. You can tell by the turnout today, and every year just gets bigger and bigger. 

A lot of the strains of Aboriginal culture would be our community. We can, you know, identify with each other pretty easily and, you know, talk to each other. We're pretty much brothers and sisters even though we're not blood-related, so I believe as a community we are stronge and as a culture, people, we are strong.

Just like events like this, we all come as one and, just like, we stand together on days like this, like Invasion Day,  and stuff like that.

A lot of people getting along getting together dancing, so it's all about culture, the strength that we have throughout these years. Our existence is resistance, but we do more than that anyway, and seeing my uncles, aunties, cousins, friends, everyone stand together 'cus, you know, even though our individual circumstances might differ, we're all one mob at the end of the day - all fighting the same fight.

We've been here over sixty thousand years, and many more to come - generations are here to stay and yeah just so we can show the young ones that we can do it together.
[Music]