"NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION": TEARS, PASSION AND HOPE AT YULE RIVER
Karriyarra traditional owner and Yule River On-Country Bush Meeting co-conveneor Raylene Button gave the Welcome to Country at this year’s meeting.
By Daniel Burdon
There were tears shed and voices raised in passion, and there was hope in the eyes of many at this year’s Yule River On-Country Bush Meeting this week on Karriyarra Ngurra (Country).
The meeting of many different Aboriginal families and leaders across several language groups in the Pilbara is a chance to sit down and consider the achievements of the year that has been - and the coming together of all on shared plans for action for the year ahead.
From the mental health of the Pilbara’s young people to the need for quality drinking water, access to land for better community facilities and the ever-deteriorating state of community housing - the meeting gathers those priorities and will bring them to the WA Government and Canberra in coming months.
This year’s meeting also marked 80 years since the Pilbara Strike - some 20 years before Vincent Lingiari walked off Wave Hill with the Gurindji mob - and saw senior Elders join the meeting to call for government action, despite the recent loss of a significant Elder.
Nyamal and Pitjikarli Elder, Mrs Doris Eaton, still attended the meeting despite sorry business.
She gave an impassioned speech calling for action on poor housing, teenagers doing the wrong thing and better education for young people, asking everyone to take note of the fight for justice of the Pilbara strikers and the Commission of Elders who established the meeting.
Nyamal and Pitjikali Elder Mrs Doris Eaton speaks at the 2026 Yule River On-Country Bush Meeting.
“Hear our voices, hear our cries,” she said.
“Our kids are missing, drugs in town, kids are running wild like the dogs and people like Julyardi are (part of) the community trying and wanting to help, but no funding, funding’s tied to the government.”
“Government people like yourself need to go look at the communities, do not sit down and ignore us … I grew up with this whole people talking but doing nothing.
“That’s enough.”
Mrs Eaton also officially passed on her role as the Voice of the Pilbara, a cultural advocacy role at the centre of the Pilbara’s Aboriginal political movement, to her son, Troy Eaton.
For his part, Mr Eaton said his journey was just beginning but he would “get on the horse” and deliver the Call to Action as soon as possible to WA Premier Roger Cook and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Attendees await the WA government’s response to the Call to Action from this year’s Yule River On-Country Bush Meeting.
Beyond the 31 Aboriginal organisations and hundreds of Pilbara locals who attended, WA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Don Punch, Minister for the Pilbara Amber-Jade Sanderson and the WA Commissioner for Children and Young People, Dr Jacqueline McGowan-Jones, as well as several senior public servants, also joined the meeting.
Minister Punch committed to working with the community on their priorities, to raise specific issues with his ministerial colleagues, and return to the Pilbara in six months to report on the government’s work.
For Dr McGowan-Jones, a proud Arrernte-Warumungu woman, it was her fifth and final Yule River Bush Meeting in the role of Commissioner, taking the chance to urge the government to act on the mental health crisis facing young Aboriginal people in the Pilbara.
A survey Dr McGowan-Jones’ office has been undertaking this year, of 17,000 school-aged children across the state, laid bare the situation - a big positive being that more than 90 per cent of Pilbara children felt at home in the region.
Still, almost 50 per cent of those surveyed across seven government, Catholic and independent schools in the Pilbara said they were concerned about their mental health, some 15 per cent higher than the rest of the state.
Dr McGowan-Jones said a key problem was that when young people presented at hospital, it was often due to the immediate effects of drug or alcohol misuse, when the underlying issue was mental health.
She said the state government urgently needed to ensure both issues were addressed together and there was a growing need for detoxification facilities alongside rehabilitation, so young people could get cleaned up and learn to manage their mental health.
Dr McGowan-Jones said poor mental health among children was often connected with struggling in overcrowded housing, poor diet, higher than usual family caring responsibilities and too often, family violence.
She gave an independent voice to the concerns of several local Aboriginal health leaders in community controlled organisations, and the worries of all about the future if the region’s young people are not looked after and supported to grow.
Pilbara Working Group members Henry Lockyer and Zoe Little presented the community recommendations at Yule River.
Pilbara Aboriginal Health Alliance Executive Director and Pilbara Working Group member, Henry Lockyer, agreed that the mental health of young people was a critical issue, and it was one of many priorities the community was still waiting for the government to act on.
Mr Lockyer said funding from the state committed to after last year’s meeting meant the working group and state government would be holding a series of workshops for department staff and community-controlled organisations to make progress on the specific items for action.
“We have worked well with the state government on many things over several years, and they have come out here and listened, but the time for listening is over,” he said.
“Now is the time for action.”