Gary Oakley - A long way to go

Running time
1 min 30 sec
Date made
Place made
Australia
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

In my 50 years of service its totally changed but we’ve still got a long way to go. We've still got some dinosaurs. We've still got problems, even within Indigenous Affairs we have problems because we mirror just like we do outside, non-military there are always, we're our own worst enemy sometimes, First Nation people, you know, we can be the worst bloody bitchy bastards and not working with people and, you know, we will shaft ourselves really badly.

So, I mean, we've got to stop that. We've had problems where we've gone, "Oh, hang on, we have to step back from this because we sound like a dysfunctional community, because we're all arguing about stuff ". So, you know, there are certain problems within Indigenous Affairs, which we're working through and we're figuring it out. But it's like everywhere, it's never going to be perfect.

But I'm working on the principle that one day, we won't have Indigenous Affairs because it'll just be business as usual, you know, why should we have special things? We should all be respected for who you are and what you are where and where you come from.

Was this page helpful?
We can't respond to comments or queries via this form. Please contact us with your query instead.
CAPTCHA