Transcript: Doing business on Country

Music playing on opening of session: Mala Rrakala by Gurrumul

Sherryl Reddy: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for joining our first open learning session for 2025 convened by The Land Back Foundation. This is part of the Social Enterprise Development Initiative, also known as SEDI.

It's a real privilege on behalf of Social Enterprise Australia to acknowledge the wisdom and cultural authority in this room, to meet Madonna and Adam, and to see you again, Birdy. Thank you for being here, and for your care and willingness to share your time and expertise with us today.

Before I hand over to Birdy, Madonna and Adam, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians and original care-holders of the unceded lands from which we're all joining today. I'm joining from the lands of the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal language group, and I recognise their continuing connection to lands, waters and culture. I'm a migrant settler on these lands and I'm slowly learning ways to meet my responsibility to engage in processes of repair. I honour the living knowledge of Elders past, present and emerging, and thank them for their extreme patience and grace as we unlearn colonial ways of seeing and doing. I pay respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants joining us today and recognise that your presence holds over 65,000 years of systems thinking and relational care for people and planet.

In the social enterprise sector and the broader social impact space, many of us, including myself, often speak to being good for people and planet. In reality, we have some hard, critical work to do if we want to practice a future that's healing and just for all. I think building our individual and collective capabilities for relational ways of being is key to this work, and we are fortunate to benefit from the generosity of leaders and guides like Madonna, Adam and Birdy.

I'm conscious of claiming space that isn't mine to claim, it's an absolute pleasure to hand over to Birdy, Madonna and Adam. Thank you.

Birdy Bird: Thank you, Sherryl, that's a beautiful acknowledgement, I want to acknowledge your acknowledgement. 

I don't wear the label of leader in this space comfortably. As a settler, colonist and descendant of convict and settler families, I will never be anything other than a learner. It is a lifelong learning. Acknowledging Country that I sit on; I'm on Yagara Country, which is the Country of Madonna's mob and forebears and ancestors. I acknowledge that very strongly and acknowledge that I'm still continually learning about the Country that I live and work from.

My role at The Land Back Foundation is about sitting with settler colonists, the non-Indigenous side of Australian society and asking some of the hard questions. Having difficult conversations around their relationship to Country,  what they are working towards in this space, and how can we assist? Then how can we also move wealth, resources and opportunities from one side of the ledger to the other? Because we have quite a historical moral debt to pay. And I think that in terms of acknowledging that and embracing what kind of future we want to participate in, it's part of the work that we do to not be performative in our actions. The Land Back Foundation is here to help guide people to become more active in their allyship and moving towards working with mob and Country in better ways. 

I'm not going to introduce Madonna and Adam because there's no one better to introduce someone than themselves. So I’ll hand to Madonna. Could you give us a quick intro of yourself and Nyanda, your business.

Madonna Thomson: Hello everyone. Thank you for having me. Hi Adam, it's nice to virtually meet you for the first time. I'm a Goori person of Southeast Queensland, so that's what I grew up calling myself. Through my grandmother, we are Yugambeh, the Upper Logan River people. Mijunberri and Mananjali of Beaudesert. Through grandfather we are Yagara, but we are Ugarapul territory, Emu clan, Nyurung of the Lockyer Valley. So that's the places where we sit.

Nyanda, our business, that I own and co-founded with my husband and one of our daughters was created in response to demand. We knew for a very long time that there was a need to change the approach around revegetation in urbanised areas. Twenty-two years ago we started challenging this monoculture of planting the same species everywhere in urbanised areas so that Lomandra just about congests every single waterway you can think of. We also knew back then the problem was that we didn't have the supply.That was always the issue for local governments and developers. So we had to wait and bide our time until it became increasingly a demand by everybody else to want to know about native plants. And so in 2017, after three years of developing, we created, and launched our first public cultural education tool which introduces the governance of Goori People and helps to understand place based in terms of Country and how we use resources.

Then I worked with the University of Queensland with researchers, international and Australian PhD students around the ethical research into native plants and their applications with communities. I'm getting to see what scientists do and how broad an application that research has, not just for food, but across many different industries. So it's always a learning journey for me too, Birdy. I'm constantly learning about Country and I've had the privilege of being able to walk her and interact with her for almost three decades in Aboriginal cultural heritage and Aboriginal excavation work. We've been very proactive in recording and preserving as many sites as possible left in a highly modified environment. 

Thanks. Over to you, Adam. 

Adam Byrne: Worimi. Thanks, Sis. Wow, I’m pretty inspired by that. That's beautiful work. Worrimi, My name's Adam Byrne. I'm one of the founders of a social enterprise called Bush to Bowl. I'm on Garigal Country in New South Wales, Sydney, on Sandstone Country. My mob's from here, my mother's mob. My grandmother's Country is on the Murramari Creek on the Darubin river and through the Broken Bay area here on Sandstone Country, it goes all the way to Lake Macquarie, Warramai, Wabigul and into the city near Gadi and Wongal Country. I also love acknowledging my dad who's of Irish descent. First and foremost, I'm a dad, I'm a son, I'm a brother and a community member.

I reside in Garigal Country, which is beautiful to have our nursery here. We are a nursery. Our biggest drive is food sovereignty, education and caring for Country. We work with local endemic plants, native plants, botanicals, the bush food industry, tourism and education, but ultimately it's the value of taking care of Country and whatever comes with that. We've put ourselves out there to take on that responsibility. There's a lot of mentoring with our young ones that we're trying to create pathways for. We've been going for about five years now, quite a journey.

Birdy Bird: Fantastic. We've had some questions come in. Thank you to the people who have signed up today and who are sitting in the audience. We've had some questions come in the background, which is helpful for framing how we have a discussion. You always have a plan. How often do things ever purely run to plan? I quite like to wing it, might be in my name or in my nature, but that's how we're going to roll today.

Adam Byrne: Before we start can I acknowledge all the women in the room? I just want to do that as well. I see you and acknowledge you and everything you bring to our communities.

Birdy Bird: Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it. The first question that I want to pose is one that's not to do directly with business, but if we zoom out far enough and consider that what we bring to business is who we are. We bring our politics, our resources, our past, our future, our family, our community, et cetera. The thing that we bring to business that we may not be aware of is a worldview. In terms of what is my worldview, maybe it's not a question that people ask themselves very often. I don’t think we zoom out far enough to consider where our assumptions, our values and our motivations come from in life, but also in terms of entering business life. So I'd love to hear from Madonna, to begin with, what is this concept of an Aboriginal worldview? And how does it influence the decisions you make to be in business?

Madonna Thomson: The question is what is our worldview in terms of how we then operate the business that we do? I'll pull that down to being a set of principles, which is the best way I can articulate it. For me, in terms of business, the fundamental principle is self-determination.

I have watched a number of generations, from my grandparents. My grandparents in no way or form did they receive any government benefits. They worked. They might have worked as labourers or domestics, but they also did subsistence living, so they all had the opportunity to provide for a family of 14 off the land. For me, self-determination comes back to Country. Our businesses are very Country-based, Country-centric when it comes to how we choose to operate.

The next set of principles that we operate by is what we do, we do for Country or we do from Country because she is the asset base, and that's a principle for anyone. That's why people move from one part of the globe to Australia, because of assets, because of land and because of the resources of those lands, whether they were trees or stone material, et cetera. We don't think very differently as human beings. It's just the way that we treat that asset and the investment connection. For us it's not about exploiting the Country, it's about undertaking business in such a way that, yes, we can achieve economic sustainability. Why not? We bartered, it was part of life, we bartered resources, traded plants, plant knowledge, applications, uses, you name it. It's also making sure that the objective remains true to the principle of Country. That what I do is for Country, I look after Country, she looks after me, that what I'm doing doesn't continue to impact on her in an adverse way because I lose my business, I lose my business space.

The next one is taking care of people. I'm not the only one. I don't live in isolation. I am connected through my grandmother and my grandfather and then their parents to a very large area of Goori People. So we share skin law, storylines, and song lines to different aspects of Country. I don't own any of those things, they are collectively owned. It makes sure that I am mindful of the reality that whatever I'm doing, it's Country based, it's also people-connected. So the focus is not about how successful I am and making money. The focus has always been around, yes you want to be paid for the job you do, but it's got to leave a legacy. It's got to create opportunity in which as I succeed then I create opportunity for others to also succeed. So that we are, and Adam will be in that position down there, our generation has been a part of breaking the glass ceiling around some of these opportunities in businesses but maintaining the foundation in those principles of Country, of People.

We always share, it's always been a part of who we are. We are constantly trading knowledge, trading information, and sharing. How do we do that? Enabling resource distribution amongst ourselves so that those coming through don't have to start from scratch and struggle. That they can be given a platform in which they can learn to enter into industries a lot faster and hopefully achieve greater things than we did, because every time one of us succeeds, many of us benefit. For me, fundamentally, that's been the root of what we do in our business. 

The third one is resilience. We're always examining. Is this still relevant? Do I need to make changes in my business behaviours? What is the next opportunity or niche in which I can begin to prepare the business to move into that space? I don't see a change of business or examining whether the business we're doing is still relevant for the future as a failure. I see that as part of resilience and part of adapting to the reality, economic and social realities if we want to continue to be successful. 

Birdy Bird: Great. Everybody can just sign off on an MBA now. We're good here. Thank you, Madonna. 

Adam, interesting to talk to you, in that you do identify Bush to Bowl as being a social enterprise and I wonder how you frame that differently being an Aboriginal social enterprise that could add, some insight or value to the audience in terms of them looking at social enterprise over here but not realising what an Aboriginal business or Aboriginal social enterprise might have to share.

Adam Byrne: That's a good question. What Sis just said then, I almost feel like saying "what she said". I think people who go down that path, black, white, whatever you like, I see it as just the person who wants to go into that space. All the things Sis just said, I feel like they'd be automatic, in her nature. I think people that go into the space of social enterprise, they have that fire in their belly. I don't reflect as much as I should, I just do. Between Clarence, myself, my sister, AJ, the whole team, especially our senior team of managers, we just do and then we try and support each other amongst that. The senior group who are looking after the younger group and trying to create that space of mentoring. I think it's in your DNA, it's your dreaming, your songline. It's automatic and that's come through your DNA as the thousands of years or the hundreds of years of your family. Sometimes I don't feel like I have this strategy. We do talk about strategies and we do talk about goals, we have to do that sort of stuff for productivity because otherwise it feels like we're not being constructive in some areas.

We are trying to create that energy, give ourselves a little bit more energy in our workspace. I hope I'm not going down a rabbit hole, it's an automatic thing when you start something like this because you have that fire in your belly just to start it. The only thing that would be a big difference because I don't like to segregate. I know there are differences between First Nations businesses and businesses of people from other cultures, but if I'm practising my own culture, then we don't see through that lens anyway. It's unfortunate that today the only difference is, it's not from a human level, like a spirit level, it's from a fact that we do have some things in our communities that need addressing because of things that have happened in the past.

If I was to say the difference between First Nations social enterprise and a non First Nations social enterprise it would be those extras you got to do for people in your community, stuff out of nine to five. There are things that we have to take on in our communities. There are calls we have to take in the middle of the night. There is school drop offs and then I have to do school drop offs for my own fella. There are those things that you do in your community because if you don't do those things, then sometimes people don't get to the pathway you're trying to create. So you have to do those little extras as an Aboriginal person to help and you see it as that collective community that you got to take care of, not just your own kids, mum and dad. You have a responsibility that you have to take.

I heard today from a sister online, she does a program called Warrior Heart and she was talking about how if you take that space in Aboriginal community to create change or create pathways, get in the stadium, you know what I mean? Then you have a responsibility and you know your responsibility. You can either walk away from it or if you want to be a business or social enterprise, then you have to do those extras because that's just your responsibility, if that makes sense? I thought wow, if you want to take it on and if you want to be in the space then you know that those extras come with it. So you either come into the space and try to create something or not and let someone else take over.

If you do come into an Aboriginal community, the business community and you're trying, you have to be authentic, you have to have self-determination and you have to take on that responsibility because you know when you go into that, that's a part of your job and that's probably the best way I can describe the difference is there are issues in our community.

Birdy Bird: I think you're making perfect sense and I see that as the whole person. The whole person and its relationship to community is going into business as that whole person. Therefore that relationship to community is a business to community relationship as well as a person to community relationship.

Madonna Thomson: If I could say something in support of what Adam is saying. Two things. One is in terms of demographics, we are a very small percentage of the population and I'll give you an example; in Brisbane there's over 25,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people which constitute 1.8% of the total population of Brisbane. Turrbal and Yuggera people are 0.8% of 1.8%. So we're a couple of hundred people. So if we don't do business ethically, culturally, consistently, it gets out very, fast and it can undermine the authenticity of what we do, particularly when it's Country based.

In amongst that couple of hundred people are Elders and other knowledge-holders. So there is always this consideration of how is the way I conduct business impacting on my community. Because it's a reality. When you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of people you might not think about it too much because you can go home and like Adam said, you just clock off at 5:30. Might be a bit of social media backlash, it annoys the crap out of you, but you haven't got relatives calling you up where it's impacting permanently, potentially relationships. 

The other one is because the value proposition for us as Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander people is people. They are the currency. Is our relationships and the way that we conduct our business with one another takes priority over money.

Adam Byrne: 100 percent and if you think about it in a cultural and old ways, culturally this is a bit of a yarn but, we live our dreaming, right? Our dreaming path has already been created by our old people, so if you choose to take that path that they've created, and we live our dreaming every day, it's a continuous culture and our dreaming is our DNA.That should make sense. We're made up of the past, our past stories, our families generation of stories and feelings and connection. And it comes through us every day, and we believe that our old people are still creating that path. So, if we choose to take that path that they've created, which is that responsibility for people in our community and creating space and creating generational wealth or just creating different pathways so they can heal certain areas in communities and families, then it's our responsibility to not only take that path but take everything that comes along with that path in that daily responsibility.

It's a lot to take, you know what I mean? To think that. You try not to think too much about it. Just get up, roll your sleeves up, get the dust off you and just start again every day. So it certainly does build resilience, that's for sure. 

Birdy Bird: So the privilege of being able to go home and clock off and not have to think about those things is what we're looking at on the other side of the fence. I guess a lot of people are here today and interested in this particular theme that social enterprises have woven through these open learning sessions because they want to learn more about how to do better as individuals and as businesses working on Country.

We know there are mechanisms out there that they can use to engage with Aboriginal businesses. There's:

• Networks that are formalised
• They can find people online
• There's regional economic groups, in most states, sometimes multiples of
• There's lots of social media platforms that people can follow, track and learn from.

I think a lot of the time what I hear is that people still get very stuck in terms of what can I do that's not tokenistic. How can my business engage with Country in a more meaningful way? I wonder if you have any tips and some low-hanging fruit that we can pass over the fence for people to start or continue that journey that they're on.

Adam Byrne: Oh gosh, a tricky one, because everyone has different perspectives on that in our communities as well. So I don't want to speak on behalf of all Aboriginal people, I can only talk about my perspective on it and Clarence's perspective on it. As I was saying with Dreaming, everyone's so individual and so layered and multifaceted that it's hard to speak on anyone's behalf. But our common goal here is to, collaboration is a big part of it. Without all people in our communities, we wouldn't exist. So, we try not to see it through a black and white lens. I know there's a reality of black and white layers in societies, I definitely know, that's a part of people's decisions or people's views. As an ally, I think it's about being your most authentic self and come in as yourself. I think to me you can feel it when you meet a person who's authentic, right?

The best thing you can do is come from a place with your values that you believe in and approach this space like you would any other space. The more authentic you can be then next thing you're part of the mob. I don't know if there's any actual things that I can advise for you to do, other than be you, stick to your values and be authentic. Come in and have a yarn with people and say “I'm on the same path of helping Country” or “I'm on the path, I want to help equality”. Whether it's things like women's shelters or regeneration or nurseries or whatever it is, just turn up as you. I think if you are authentic, people see and feel that, and then that journey will start from that space and that yarn, and that's the best way I can kind of see it, is don't come from a place of opportunity, come from an authentic place of love and connection and wanting just to give back as a community member. I don't know if you can really go wrong from that space. 

Birdy Bird: Madonna, do you want to add to that?

Madonna Thomson: Could you ask the question again?

Birdy Bird: Adam answered a really important part, which is how to show up. I think that's vital because, as we know, everything is about the relationship. So if you can't start the relationship from a place of knowing why you're there, and what you're bringing into that space and that you are, as Adam's just highlighted, in a place to come in pretty raw, pretty open, very transparent, very humble, perhaps, in terms of, being really clear about what you don't know and being willing to question what you do know and just starting that journey by having, authentic yarns and understanding that it is going to require a relationship and that relationships require trust and time to develop and that you've got to be willing to take that particular approach. And in terms of Madonna taking the talking stick forward, is that First Nations engagement? And I guess maybe it's interesting to hear where that's gone poorly. Could you give us an example of where that hasn't worked? Because it can work out poorly. 

Madonna Thomson: One of the first things, and I do this with some government agencies now, is to help them understand who is the community they're engaging. Because we're not one homogenous group. We are different nations, some people say nations, some say societies. And then as I said before, in Brisbane you've got an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community where the majority aren't actually from our Country. They're not Yagarr people and they're not Goori, they're from somewhere else. So, I think it's important to understand who it is you're seeking to engage with because most of the community organisation, social focused organisations, community organisations in Brisbane or Ipswich are not run by traditional custodians. If you know what your business is and where does it intersect and relate to our community. So if it's women's shelters or housing, then you're going to deal with communities in Brisbane and Ipswich anyway that are not traditional owners. If you're looking at supporting the traditional custodians of Country, then we're very specific, we have very specific business and like I said, being mindful that we are a very small percentage.

I'll talk about Yuggera, right? We have 12 family groups, which are clans and then myself and my brother cousin are the only two people in the Bonobel Sandy lines which constitutes 100 and something people that hold traditional ecological knowledge for Country. Just two, because our mothers and our grandmother were very, very, very knowledgeable and we took the time to learn it. So if there's a lot of demand around us, then after a while we back up and go, I haven't got time. So I think when you engage with community, it's really important to understand which aspect of the community are you engaging with and learn that. And then if it is traditional owners communities, then even within our Yuggera collective, people have different agendas, they have different business, they have different approaches. We don't all do the same thing. And sometimes we'll have focus on particular areas to which our clans have greater association. So it's also important to recognise you're not going to get agreement across all of these. It's not realistic. But working with those families that do have business that do operate already, how you can support them and if in fact they need your support. Be open to the reality that they might not need it, might not be a match in their eyes or we're not ready for it.

You know, we've been excluded from business in our Country for absolute generations. My mother's generation is the first one. They didn't even finish high school. They came back later in the 80s and started with TAFE because it was really the 80s that funding started to happen to enable us to actually get higher education and to create a pathway into universities. One of the first areas for university for my mob was social work. Wasn't lawyers and doctors, that came later, that came in my generation. So I'm one of 20 first cousins in my mother's line and only two graduated university, only three own their own home. We're talking about a huge amount of disadvantage. That didn't just stop when missions were built in the late 1890s. It's continued. We've continued to be fringe dwellers in our own homelands for a very long time.

We are now starting to see a generation like my children's generation have access to industries and employment opportunities and even business opportunities I could only have dreamed of at their age. So we need to be mindful of that as well.

I do without doubt, support Adam around authenticity. Relationships are key. If you come and work with my mob, we'll want to know what is it you're going to contribute? Does it align with where we want to go? We have no problems with collaborations and partnerships. We recognise it is the reality if we want to succeed in this world that we are now starting to have real contribution and involvement in. Be mindful that we will expect exchange, we will expect an exchange of knowledge. We will expect you to mentor us in the business you do, should that be where we want our business to go? It's really important and that's a time investment. So if you don't have the time to do that with a community and a family group that don't have a lot of experience themselves, then don't waste their time because it's going to take a while to build that relationship, build that trust.

In the last 25 years I worked with Department of Natural Resources and Mines as an Indigenous Natural Resource Officer and one of the first things that I had to do when I went with them to community was translate because all of a sudden we're talking about salinity, we're talking about natural resource management. I'd have Elders, they're passed now, they'd be sitting there going “I don't even know what they're talking about”, and I'd be going, “they're talking about caring for Country”, then I'd have to translate it and how we talk about Country, and then they go “Oh yeah, okay, I get that now”. Then I'd have to go over to the government followers and go “See how you use that word there?”, which I had to educate myself about what it meant, this is what we mean. When you say that, we're saying this, but it's the same thing. So we've got to be mindful of that as well. That’s information sharing. And so we can then work, go forward. Then we start to realize that we might all be using English in urbanised areas and really remote communities, it might be different, but sometimes our application or use of the English language is 100% subject to our cultural perspective. We need to make sure that's aligned when we move forward.

Birdy Bird: Really important points in terms of  taking time and building relationships so that the language that you're using and the way that you're communicating is meeting at a point rather than, not, which is not ideal.

We've hit that time in the session where we might open up to some questions from the floor. I've got a bit of a list here that was sent through earlier. Some of them have been answered in the session already which is fantastic to see. We've got one, I think might be coming from mob about how prescribed body corporate (PBC) businesses can activate their lands for economic benefit for their family and communities. I wonder if either of you had a take on PBCs? If everybody doesn't know, a PBC is a legal organised body that is set up because of native title determination to manage the affairs of the group that have the native title determination. So it might be around negotiating with people who are doing business on that Country in terms of having land use agreements where there might be money or other obligations of those organisations on that Country. But PBCs are set up nationally, they are underfunded generally in terms of the support they get from the federal government. It's a very small amount of support, enough to pay for one admin worker generally some of them are financially successful or have a large corpus because of where they sit on Country and what activities happen there historically. So they might have inherited money from mining operations, things that have large dollar values on them. Some PBCs are very small and not very well-resourced. So I think, you know, having a look at how you can activate land for economic benefits, is probably a really good yarn to have as well.

Madonna Thomson: Are you okay if I answer this one first Adam?

Adam Byrne: Yeah, go Sis, please.

Madonna Thomson: I'll probably have a very unpopular view. And that is prescribed body corporates is what we call them before they get consent determination or a court determination, then they become native title body representatives. It is a wholly and solely construct of the Native Title Act. It is a creation that enables the government to deal with one single entity. And that's all it was ever created to really deal with, was the whole title and then to negotiate with the states and/or territories around the types of activities that they could do.Most of them are really around joint management, which sounds really great but in reality is quite minimal. Where then there's like ranges and other activities where you know, we help take care of some state forests, national forest areas that nobody really cares about.

PBCs are not designed and nor have they ever been designed consistent with how we culturally interact. Which is why it can easily be run by popularity contests rather than apply some consistent cultural principles around who can speak for what. So it, by nature is not a business. It by nature is a reflection of the government. Which is why in Queensland I see a lot of PBCs and native title representative bodies do a lot of pest and weed management. I worked with Butchulla around the creation of the tourism product and my advice to them was you need to look at some business models which enables your native title body corporate to be almost like a broker support family businesses.

The reality is traditionally in our traditional food system, in the way we interacted in Country families had sovereignty, clans had sovereignty. They had sovereignty over their resources. They came together when they needed to. They shared those connective pieces around skin, law, ceremony et cetera, marriage lines.

But they still had sovereignty. And in southeast Queensland Goori People, we are not known to have fault with each other all the time, we have consensus, making it where possible. So I think that PBCs just do what they're created to do.

And I know it's a minimal amount of funding but if it was just doing what they were created to do, it's not a bad amount of funding. But if they're going to start being expected to govern us and be a government in the image of the Australian and state government and territory governments, then we've got a problem because all of a sudden they've been given more and more responsibility that they're not funded to, to do, nor were they created essentially to do.

I think that they should be supported to enable family and clan run enterprises because they're the ones with skin in the game, they're the one with a commitment, they are the ones who are resilient through things like COVID. They keep their overheads low, they get the business done and they are fantastic at networking and coordinating across clans, across Country to get the job done.

And that's why for me, I think that there needs to be a review around the role of PBCs and native title body corporates and there needs to be a greater concentration on the support of family and clan run enterprises that are extremely effective at doing business because that's culturally where it always was.

Birdy Bird: Thank you. And you know Adam, obviously you're in New South Wales so you know, different systems exist in terms of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Act setting up New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council and then the system of local Aboriginal Land Council councils which take up, you know, the footprint of New South Wales.

But perhaps there's an echo of similar sentiment there around what those local Aboriginal Land Councils could do better to support, you know, families, to, you know, to unlock business opportunities for economic benefit off that land.

Have you had much to do with the ALC's, Adam? 

Adam Byrne: No, we're too impatient for that. So we, we're a bit more like DIY and like people email us with land and say hey, I've got 100 acres out here, do you want, you know, do you want to plan on it?

We're like, all right, so if it's sustainable for us, like we've got the plants because we grow them. We grow on one of our brothers land which is about an hour from us. So we go down in Mangrove Mountain on another family's. So we do it really like, you know, you know, do it ourselves.

We just like if, if someone comes out and approaches us or we have approached people and we kind of barter so we'll say to, you know, our brother has like tiny houses on it. And he said well you know, I kind of want to make it a bit nicer for the people who stay here, and we're like, well will you let us grow 100 trees on there?

And he's like, yeah, all right, no worries. So we grew. We have an orchard out at Wollombi. We have a, about 2 acre sort of growing area on the durable river down in Mangrove. Yeah, we grow in schools, high schools, community spaces.

Like, we, yeah, we really do it on a community level and through our own kin. Because you're gonna wait. I don't know, there's too many layers and too much, not enough transparency. And there's too. It just takes too long when you're trying to sort of float the ship, you know what I mean?

Like, float our business. So we just do it the other way and just do it from a relationship basis and, yeah, and work that way, because the other way it's just taken. I don't know, we just never had the time to sit down and go through that process because we hit the road running, from the start.

Birdy Bird: Yeah, and, and good call. You know, building a business, you do have to hit the road running and you've got to keep running. But if you're doing it well, enough, people come to you. Hey. And it may be people within your own community, or it might be people who just spot you and think, oh, there's an opportunity to, to partner or engage or offer or support something up.

And I think, you know, that that is that message, isn't it? Around other businesses or, you know, people holding land or resources that aren't perhaps being utilised in the way that they could be. Or they can see now a new opportunity to sort of say, hey, Madonna, here's 100 acres of riverside farming land.

You know, go for it. 

Madonna Thomson: I wish, Birdy, I wish

Birdy Bird: We're not doing. We're not doing much with it at the moment. 

Adam Bryne: Like, how Sis was saying before, like, time is worth so much more than money, right? So it's like, and if, you know, like, far out.

If you've got the time to try and the patience and the resilience to go on that journey of trying to go through that space, then do it. But if you want to just, there's other ways, I believe on a community level, through relationships, and there's some pretty incredible people out there that can, who want to give back.

And there's plenty of people who have land who want to do it, but I guess there are that relationship and those, there is risk in that too. So it's not all rainbows and lollipops, but, like, if it works.

You know what I mean? Far out. Like, you can, you can really, you know, build some pretty incredible relationships with people in communities. 

Birdy Bird: Thank You. That's probably all we've got time for in terms of the other questions actually have been pretty well covered off.

So we might collectively, you can use your little chat function and give Madonna and Adam a big thank you for sharing so generously their opinions, knowledge, protocols, processes and, you know, whether that's something that shifts a, you know, a mindset around social enterprise for you, whether that gives you a bit more of the brave pants to put on to get out and engage differently, you know, with businesses or just in terms of how some of that learning might make you think about doing business on Country differently.

I would hope that there's some seeds of reflection in there, you know, for everybody involved, but I'll hand back over and just say thank you to those for attending and thank you to Madonna, Adam, for your time and we'll let SEA do their official closing.

Adam Byrne: Thank you. Thanks Sis, thanks, thanks Sis.

Sherryl Reddy: Thanks, Birdy. Thanks, Madonna. And thanks, Adam. Really grateful for the time that you've shared with us.

Mountains of gratitude for the wisdom that's come through. I think there's a comment from someone that said: “Not a question, but a thank you to Madonna, Adam and Birdy for such straight talking, it's utterly refreshing.” So I think that's a great way to sum up what you've shared with us today. We appreciate how you've been so open about how we need to look at the idea that practicing care for people and planet is not a set of structured processes.  I think in the social enterprise space we often talk about developing business capabilities, but really we need to maybe focus more on our sensibilities for care and community beyond, as Adam was saying, beyond, you know, just looking at opportunity.

I'm so grateful for your generosity in giving us your time and allowing us to be in this space with you today. Heads up for everyone online, particularly those whose great questions we didn't get to, this is one of two sessions from The Land Back Foundation to help us deepen our engagement with First Nations systems change.

The next session is scheduled for sometime in May, so keep an eye out for that. And in closing, just want to say mountains of gratitude to Madonna, Adam and Birdy. Thanks everyone for joining us online.

If you do have a moment, we'd really appreciate you filling in a survey. These learning opportunities, we want them to be shaped by you. So before you jump off, we'd appreciate you taking a minute to complete the survey that's just popped up on the screen now.

Huge thanks as well to the team at Social Enterprise Australia and the Department of Social Services who are supporting these learning communities. Thanks, Caragh, Jess, Christina, Athanasia,  Liz, Megan, Raylee from Social Enterprise Australia.

And thank you to Judy Cyngler and Alexia Tribe from the Department of Social Services. Huge thanks. 

And if I could, I've got some questions here. I might pass them through to the three of you, Birdy, Madonna and Adam. And maybe we can come up with some resources and recommendations that we can share for people that are tuning into Understorey after this, if that's okay with you.

Birdy Bird: Yeah, no worries. Yep, send them through. We'll work through them. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks, everyone for joining. Take care. Have a great day. Thanks, Adam. Thanks, Madonna.