Larissa Berendt

We have to value, be curious about, and build on our ancient wisdoms.

One of the most hurtful aspects of the debate around the 2023 referendum was the re-emergence of the tired and insulting narrative that Aboriginal people are somehow stone-aged.

What is so often missing is curiosity about how we became and remain the world's oldest continuous culture, a legacy of knowledge, resilience and innovation that should be a source of national pride.

you do not get to be considered the world's oldest living continuous culture by luck.

For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal people lived on this continent sustainably and adjusting to change.

But to me, that's not even the most wondrous part of what my culture today represents.

As I see my Uwalarai community come together, learning our language, connecting with country, claiming our native title, regenerating our cultural practices, I marvel not just that my culture has survived 65,000 plus years, but that it has survived everything that colonisation has thrown at us over the last couple of centuries.

Surely there is strength and resilience in that, which should inspire us to help find solutions to the challenges we are collectively facing today, including climate change and threats to our democracy.

Indigenous knowledge systems are not simply cultural artefacts.

They are sophisticated intellectual traditions.

They offer ways of thinking rooted in sustainability, reciprocity, interconnection and care for country.

They value the wisdom of male and female elders, lived experience and collective problem solving.

Imagine if these philosophies were centred in how we govern, educate and respond to crisis.

Our debates about democracy have too often been confined to the narrow horizons of European thought, framed by the philosophies of French and British men from a few centuries ago.

That lineage has given us important ideals, but it has also limited our imagination.

What if, instead, we went further back?

What if we drew on the oldest continuing cultures in the world, on First Nations knowledge systems that value consensus, responsibility to community, and deep care for country?

Including First Nations worldviews would not just enrich our democracy, it would transform it, broadening it beyond the confines of Western liberal traditions and grounding it in values of respect, reciprocity and shared survival.

This is the conversation that could carry our democracy into a more inclusive and enduring future.

The concept of interdependence reminds us that no nation, no community and no individual can face the climate crisis alone.