Transcript: First Nations Principles for Social Enterprise Development

Music playing on opening of session: Bilwaali (Home) by Maanyung

Jess Moore: Hi everyone. I'm Jess Moore, CEO of Social Enterprise Australia. It's a privilege to welcome you to today's event, the first of the Social Enterprise Development Initiative (SEDI) Open Learning Communities. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unceded lands we all join from today and recognise their continuing connection to lands, waters and culture. 

I'm here on beautiful Dharrawal country. I pay respects to the living knowledges of Elders past, present and emerging and pay my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. I'm grateful to my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander colleagues and friends who are helping me and many others in this field to grow ways of seeing, doing and being that contribute towards a healing future for all of us. I'm thankful for their patience and grace as we slowly unlearn colonial ways of being and build muscles of collective collaborative care. This requires us to understand the past and the role we play in building a shared, just and reconciled future. This is not easy or comfortable. It is the systems change work that we must do.

Today's event forms part of the Australian Government's Social Enterprise Development Initiative, an initiative to strengthen social enterprise capability and to help build capability for all actors in the social enterprise field to grow social impact. As part of this, Social Enterprise Australia is the SEDI Education and Mentoring Coordinator. In this role, we are bringing together leading practice materials and learning communities in a digital commons called Understorey. It's a digital commons by which we mean it's shaped by all who choose to take part.

A key part of Understorey is four types of learning communities: Open Learning like this one, smaller Peer Learning and Support communities, Deep Experience communities, and Innovation Collaborations. Learning communities have been developed to create space for diverse perspectives, voices and leadership and to contribute to making the sector more welcoming, reflective and diverse. We really value diverse opinions and today encourage open dialogue including where perspectives, positions and views of conveners and contributors might differ from Social Enterprise Australia, the Australian Government who are funding this work, and others here today.

This is the first of the Social Enterprise Development Initiative Open Learning events and is an opportunity to share learnings, insights and innovations from across the sector. We are so thrilled to have Shifting Ground convening it. Before I introduce the facilitators, I want to thank and hand over to the Honourable Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT.

Andrew Leigh: G'day. My name's Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Charities. I'm coming to you from Ngunnawal land. Dauranunga Daura Ngunnawal Yungu Ngalamanyan Dunimanyan Ngawari Daurawari Dindi Wangaralin Jinnyin. I acknowledge all First Nations peoples present and thank Social Enterprise for the vital work that you do in closing the gaps.

It's a real pleasure to be asked by the remarkable Jess Moore of Social Enterprise Australia to say a few words at the beginning of this Learning Communities event. It is appropriate that your first Learning Communities event focuses on First Nations. The concept of discussing First Nations principles for social enterprise is a vital one for Australia. We recognise that so much of what we do needs to include First Nations perspectives.

Social enterprises are through our communities and are building a stronger, more connected society. They are doing a power of good for reaching out to the most disadvantaged. Social enterprises are lifting up people with disabilities, assisting those who've just come out of jail. They're there for people who are struggling with addiction challenges and they're available for people who just arrived in Australia.

Social enterprises are like the social glue in our society, bringing us together, assisting the most vulnerable and ultimately empowering the community. The Albanese government is committed to seeing our social enterprises thrive and conversations like these are critical to strengthening our existing social enterprises and building new ones.

I know that through your conversations you'll share wisdom and insights; that established organisations will provide ideas to new ones, all brokered by your terrific facilitators, Shifting Ground’s Dr Lilly Brown and Genevieve Grieves. Thank you for all that each of you do as members of Australia's great social enterprise community.

Thank you again to Social Enterprise Australia and I wish you all the best for a productive conversation today.

Jess Moore: I'd like to say an enormous thanks to Andrew for sending this message to us today and for his ongoing advocacy and support for social enterprise. 

It's an absolute privilege to be in the presence of our hosts and guest speakers for today's session.

Our Hosts today are Dr. Lilly Brown and Genevieve Grieves. Dr. Lilly Brown is an educator, facilitator and researcher who has worked across the not-for-profit, government, corporate, arts and culture, and education sectors on racial literacy and cultural safety. With a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Cambridge and a Doctorate in Youth Studies from the University of Melbourne, Lilly's work is informed by her relationships with communities and young people across Australia.

She belongs to the Gumbaynggirr people of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales and lives on the lands of the Yawuru and Jugan people in Rubibi Broome. Lilly is the CEO of Magabala Books, the leading indigenous-owned and controlled publisher on this continent.

Genevieve Grieves is a proud Worimi woman and respected artist, curator, educator, field builder, film director, and oral historian. She is recognised as a leader in community engagement and decolonising methodologies in Australia. Genevieve is the co-creator and creative Director of storytelling agency GARUWA, where she champions projects that place First Nations knowledge at their core.

Welcome to you both! Over to you Lilly and Gen.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you so much, Jess. It is an absolute pleasure to be here today. Giinagay in the language of my people, Gumbaynggirr people, Ngaji Gurrjin, which is hello in the Yawuru language of the place that I am calling in from today.

I'd like to acknowledge that I'm calling in from the unceded lands of the Yawuru and Jugan people and I pay my deepest respect to their ancestors and elders of this place, past and present. As Jess said, today I'm calling in from Rubibi, which is the Yawuru place name for Broome in the north of Western Australia. 

So as far away as I could possibly be from most of you, if any of you have had the opportunity to visit this place - a place where the Pindan or red dirt meets the bluest of seas—you'd know how incredibly inspiring the Country is here. I have really deep gratitude for this place. Not only is it the place I now call home, but also as the ancestral Country of my children and my partner, and therefore as the nourisher of thousands of generations of my kin. I acknowledge all of the First Nations that each of you are calling in from today too.

I also want to note that it is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. So in recognising this day, I send my love and solidarity across the Indian Ocean to Gaza and the occupied territories and to our Palestinian siblings here on this continent and indeed on this call today.

As Jess said in her beautiful introduction, I'm Dr. Lilly Brown. It's still a novelty to say that even after a few years. I'm from the mid-north coast of New South Wales, but I spent my early years on Whadjuk Noongar Country down south from where I'm sitting now, and then followed on by a decade of incredible time on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people before returning to the homelands of my partner and kids here in Rubibi.

I wear many hats; one of those being the CEO of the award-winning Aboriginal community-controlled publishing house Magabala Books, and another, as Jess said, as the co-founder and director of Shifting Ground. I'll tell you a little bit more about what we're hoping for from today's webinar shortly, and I'm also going to hand it over to Genevieve to introduce herself and talk more about what it is that we do at Shifting Ground.

But first, I want to take the temperature of the Zoom Room. You might have already noticed this is a little bit different from usual webinars because you all came on and can see one another. I just want to get a bit more of an idea of where everyone is calling in from and what the collective shape of the shared knowledge that we hold between us might look like as almost 100 people on the call right now.

So in a moment you're going to see a little Menti prompt pop up here in Zoom. You can join that, and we have a few questions for you. For those of you who have experienced this before, you just answer the question and it's going to show us a beautiful word cloud. The first question is: How would you describe your role in the social enterprise sector? 

We’ve got funder, organisation storyteller, enabler, advocate, academic, beginner, activator—I like that one—facilitator, teacher of business. That's beautiful. An operator, an ecosystem field builder—I’m guessing that's you, Genevieve—evaluator. What this is showing us when I talk about the shape of our collective knowledge is that there's a lot of diversity on the call today and a lot of different people coming from the sector, which is really what we were hoping for.

We've got 102 people on the call right now; that's an incredible collective. I can see challenger in there—intermediary varied—that's good. There are a few people I can imagine on this call that wear many hats: fellow practitioners.

Now we might go to the next question: Which Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander lands are you joining from? Please, if you don't know, just say you don't know; that's absolutely fine. But in saying that you don't know, I also really invite you after the webinar today to jump on Google and find out whose country you're located on.

So we've got Whadjuk, Noongar, Dharawal, Yugara, Cammeraygal; Dja Dja Wurrung; Kabi Kabi up in Queensland; we've got Boonwurrung from around the bay down there on the south coast; Wurundjeri; Warang; Jagera and Turrbal. When we think about who we are on this call today and our collectivity, I also think about the songlines that have joined the places that each of you are coming from today for thousands of generations.

I also want us all to understand that as we're thinking about what we do in terms of our relationship to this Understorey—the places we're all located on—also have held relationships to one another for a very long time. That's really important not just when we're talking about who we are as people but also when we understand place as family and kin. We've got Gadigal in there in Sydney… unceded Wangal country.

Thank you. Could we go to the next question please? This one is really important: One word that describes how you are feeling today? Hopeful. Inspired. Nervous. Busy. Excited to learn. Exhausted. I feel you. Buoyant—I love that! Flat—I understand. Nervous again. Tired. Hopeful. Curious. Relaxed and soft—these are beautiful words! Depleted. Outraged. Enthusiastic. Safe. Dispirited. 

So what I'm really seeing here is that there are a lot of different levels and energies coming into the room today. We'll do a check-in on the way out and see how much these words have shifted. Thank you so much, everyone.

We are experiencing a very big moment in the context of our history as humans on this planet. It's also a Friday, and it's almost December. There's never really been a more important time to check in on one another than right now. While we're limited today to these words and words in the cloud, I cannot emphasize enough the value of care in lightening the load in this present and very heavy moment for many. 

It is within this context that I thank you all so much for turning up today. We really appreciate your presence and are eternally grateful to the folks at Social Enterprise Australia, who evidently value First Nations wisdom, knowledge, and experience as foundational to a healthy social enterprise sector—a sector that understands that accountability to the people and places we hope our work will benefit will, in turn, create impact that serves both people and planet today and tomorrow.

Over the next little while, I'm excited to introduce you—if you haven't had the privilege of encountering Genevieve Grieves, Deen Sanders, Rona Glynn McDonald, and Blaze Kwaymullina before now—to an incredible lineup of First Nations change-makers who draw on thousands of generations of wisdom every day to animate their work and bring into being a self-determined future for First Nations people and, by extension, a better future for all.

Each of today's contributors will share learnings around what they do and why. Then, with any time we have left, we'll hold a brief Q&A before finishing up. So please, as people are presenting, note down any questions that you have, and we'll aim to get to some of those towards the end of the session.

For Genevieve and me in our work at Shifting Ground, over the last few years we've worked with many non-Aboriginal people and organisations to bring this future I've mentioned into being. A key principle that guides this future-building work for us is that if you can get right what you do with First Nations people, your work with all people will benefit. 

In sharing this principle with you, it also becomes the prompt for today's webinar. Responding to this prompt first is, as I've said, my sister and colleague, Worimi Woman, Genevieve Grieves. Genevieve, can you talk about who you are, what you do, and what this prompt means for your work?

Genevieve Grieves: Thanks Lilly, and hi everyone. Excuse my very croaky voice; I'm a little bit sick today but I'm coming in from Larrakia country. I'm a Worimi woman from the mid-north coast, not far from where Lilly's from. I've been blessed to know her over many years and create spaces and changes that are really for future generations. I'm very proud to know her and to work with her.

We founded a company together called Shifting Ground, which is really a collective of many different women—and now some men as well—who teach in various spaces to really shift our society and transform our ways of thinking. I'm also co-founder of Garuwa, which we call a storytelling agency, but it's also a social enterprise—a field-building institution—a whole range of different things that amplify our mob’s voices for change.

That prompt is a really interesting one; it's something we talk about a lot in our training. I've been thinking deeply about this for several years now. It's useful to consider the context we're in now: our society has been shifting for the past 30 years, and there are openings now that weren't there at all. We've moved from a great Australian silence to a deep desire for connection and engagement with First Nations peoples and cultures. That's an incredible shift.

You see it everywhere with the development of reconciliation action plans or the use of First Nations languages or First Nations staff being brought into different entities. But there are a few questions we need to ask about that: What is the actual shift? Where is the power sharing? Where is the wealth? Where is the opportunity to make real change? Understanding that communities have all the solutions to their problems but not necessarily always the means to influence the power brokers they interface with is crucial.

It's also important to note that 0.5% of philanthropy currently goes to First Nations people and initiatives—which is an astounding figure. While there has been this big shift in our society coming from a sense of obligation—people know they have to do Acknowledgment of Country or have these policies—I don't think there's actually a deep understanding of how we do things or our ways of doing, being, and knowing.

These cultural principles and protocols don't just have value for us; like Indigenous peoples across the globe, our cultures are based on care, reciprocity, and connection. These ways of being actually have value for everyone. I think there's a shift now because of the climate crisis and other challenges we face as a society; there's a deepening understanding that these Western extractive systems of engagement are getting us into problems—not just with climate change but also with ongoing issues like genocide unfolding in Gaza and here in Australia.

So I see an opportunity here for people to deepen their understanding of the actual value of our ways of doing things. I've had experiences many times in workplaces where my non-Indigenous colleagues look at what we're doing—our ways of working—and say this is actually pretty amazing: how you're connecting with community; how you're holding space.

What I'd really like to see is not just surface accommodation or tokenism but deeper reckoning with our ways of doing, being, knowing—and incorporating them into a new system that's more about shared work, shared responsibility, and making ethical and just change. I see challenges we face at the moment in terms of how we're working together and how we exist in this society.

And I also see the opportunities and the hope that can come from doing this work in a grounded way, with actual deep respect and incorporation of values in ways of working. My final response to that prompt is that the ways we work are really about humanising—not just us as First Peoples, but humanising everyone. In our work at Shifting Ground, the spaces we enter into—workplaces, organisations—that's the challenge everyone feels at the moment. They feel disconnected and they feel the value of the way that we do this work. Thanks, Lilly.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you so much, Gen. Likewise, it's such a pleasure and privilege to be able to work with you and to know that what you're talking about is actually so realistic when we're thinking about what practice looks like—not just for First Nations organisations, but for all organisations.

So Deen, like Gen, is Worimi and also a Giparr in his community first. He's also a regulatory and governance expert, a management and leadership expert, and a leading ethicist who advises governments and corporates on integrity, systems, and ethical processes. Deen has particular experience and interest in the intersection between Indigenous knowledge and sectors such as environment and climate change, which Gen also spoke to in terms of what our knowledge is good for—economics, community development, tourism, leadership, governance policy, and the space industry.

Deen is the lead partner for Deloitte, which is where he's calling in from today—a business focused on matters of governance, leadership, trust policy, and strategy. He is unashamedly interested in helping businesses and governments tackle the big and difficult problems—of which there are many.

Deen, I could go on and on, but what I'm sure everyone wants to hear is from you. So tell us what learnings are there when we understand that best practice working with First Nations people and communities is also best practice for all?

Prof. Deen Sanders: Good to see you all. I'm going to share a presentation just to make sure I stay on track because I know people like to jot some things down. I do want to come into that conversation and I'm really pleased that sister Genevieve came that way because it allows me to come in slightly sideways.

Firstly, I want to challenge this language of social enterprise. We think of things as being somehow socially directed as distinct from enterprise-directed—solving a social problem. The challenge for me is about our systems; Genevieve was going in the right direction. We want to invite everyone into that.

As a cultural man who cares deeply about this place and the places I live, I am joining you from an office which is really uncomfortable. I'm normally up on Country but it's rainy and horrible over here in Gadigal. But I am in Gadigal today. So, Ngatha Ginyang Gadigal Barray gaba is this Country that I’m sitting in. My language is Gathang Language of the Worimi people. But I'm not on Country obviously; I'm sitting in a pretty bland corporate space.

I always keep my tools of culture close; I always have the things that matter to me. Of course, I need to remind myself and tell people about where I'm from—in my case, Warringal Barray gaba. That's freshwater country by the way—Worimi is saltwater country. I’m a freshwater man from saltwater Country.I grew up in the mountains in the cold spaces around Worimi country—freshwater and saltwater mixing.

[Gathang language of the Worimi people]: I want to acknowledge all the elders of the country you're on. They have enriched you; they have made you; they have shared with us. They're in your soil, in your blood, in your breath—they are part of everything that exists in life.

Relevant to this conversation is [Gathang language of the Worimi people] this always was Aboriginal land. Wherever you are joining from on this call was Aboriginal land. [Gathang language of the Worimi people] it always will be Aboriginal land. This isn't meant as a challenge or directive or some sort of claim to territoriality; it really doesn't interest us as cultural people.

What it is is a recognition of the blood of this Country—the joy, soul, and strength available to everybody—that nurtures everyone on this particular call. It's a gift in this conversation.

This bears on our idea about social enterprise. Sometimes social enterprise is understood as coming from a particular way of looking at a social outcome. Culture is something I've wrestled with for most of my life regarding its relationship to business and Western academic knowledge. I've got a couple of PhDs and have been in business and government for a long time trying to navigate those worlds—and I've just given up.

There isn't a navigable path; I want to share that not as frustration but as truth. They are two separate worlds; we meet only at the edges. There's a Venn diagram somewhere in there but it's not the same circles—they're in relationship but not the same story.

I invite you to think about this as part of our conversation about where you all sit right now. This isn't a recipe for how you do social enterprise better; it's about how we're affected by the paradigm we sit within and how we come into these conversations because the paradigm matters.

When we're talking about social enterprise generally or things in this space, we often talk about economics regarding Indigenous people—many good people with good intentions think about how we solve that Indigenous problem. This often frames where social enterprise begins: how do we solve that problem of those poor Indigenous people?

The whole closing-the-gap system implies there's a problem with our people. Well, I want everyone on this call to know there is no problem with our people—the problem lies with you people.

The problem isn't the 3%; the problem is the 97%. When we frame this challenge, it's a deficit construct, and we're thinking about real problems: housing, education, health, criminal justice. These are problems we experience not because we are Indigenous people, but because you are non-Indigenous people. 

So the social enterprise challenge is the other way in my particular view. That's one way of thinking about it. The other way is, of course, that we often think about why we don't come together and magnify the success for Indigenous people. How do we talk about the economic development of Indigenous people in business? This is the current language of government; a lot of focus, as you’ll all be aware, is on things like economic self-determination: how do we help businesses grow? How do we help Aboriginal people take opportunities in the marketplace? How do we improve our employment outcomes, our procurement outcomes, our participation outcomes? 

But those things—and this is going to be a little challenging for some—because I spent most of my life in this space and I completely acknowledge it. I wrestle with the fact that now, in my cultural responsibilities as a senior cultural person of my community, that it just feels like assimilation, not reconciliation. I've been taught my whole life what success looks like, and success looks like being like non-Indigenous people in this country. That's what success looks like. 

So every program of support or benefit that I've ever seen—and I do a lot of work obviously with government and others—just looks like how can we help those poor Aboriginal people get jobs, get into business, achieve for themselves? Well, look, as an older person, as a senior cultural person, as an elder of my cultural space, that just feels like being told to give up; my culture being told to give up. What matters most are the blood and soil of this country.

So the paradigm matters. I don't want anybody to feel bad about it, but I just want you to recognise where we sit in these conversations and where you might be sitting with all the best intentions in the world. My strong view—after spending my whole life dedicated to this conversation—is that we need to rewrite the entire framework. It is about rewriting economics, rewriting politics, rewriting business to recognise that Indigenous knowledge and wisdom is in fact the answer to the problem. We are not the problem; we are the answer to the problem.

This reinforces sister Genevieve's point because when I know that everybody wants connection, I know that you all want a deeper relationship with your place, with your country, with your future, with your family. We are a way of helping you understand that this is the basis of our culture; that is the basis of the gift. Indigenous business is a gift for everyone. 

Indigenous business grows differently; it doesn't grow in vertical models of accumulation and wealth. It grows sideways in relationships. It grows into deepening capacities across communities. It doesn't always look successful on paper, but it's successful in community because we think about employment in the context of meaningful work—not just in terms of accumulation of wealth.

Indigenous knowledge systems and Indigenous knowledge systems theory around our wisdom systems are the answer to the world's problems. I say this not just from my voice; I want to give you comfort in this story—not just Deen's crazy ramblings—but this comes deeply from our cultural understanding. This is something from Uncle David Mowaljarlai who wrote in his book *Yorro Yorro*. He wrote this particular paragraph: 

“We are really sorry for you people. We cry for you because you haven’t got meaning of culture in this country. We have a gift we want to give you. We keep getting blocked from giving you that gift. We get blocked by politics and politicians. We get blocked by media, by process of law.” 

We get blocked by politicians—even well-intentioned ones like the Assistant Minister who spoke earlier.

Frankly, I spend a lot of my time kicking those fellas in the shins because they start with a good proposition but it comes from a place of deficit framing—as though we are a problem to be solved. We get blocked by media; we get blocked by processes of law—I say that as a lawyer. All we want to do is come out from under all of this and give you this gift—the gift of pattern thinking, the gift of our knowledge.

We've been trying to give it to this country for 240 years but have been unable to do so; we haven't been able to be listened to. I want to frame this conversation about social enterprise this way because this is the benefit—the question that literally challenged me—that you know these are my words: The opportunity for everybody in this country—for all of you—for every single person in this country—is to participate in our culture; to participate in our relationship with the country; to share the love we have for each other; for people and family and connections—because that's what deepens us.

I want you all to feel proud of the fact that this culture is still here—still living, still breathing, still practiced—still part of our life. I don't exist outside my country or outside my culture alone in the world. We have the deepest, oldest, most significant cultural wisdom and knowledge traditions in the world—in a landscape that we understand that is naturally abundant—that is there for everybody.

Indigenous knowledge about how to live successfully in this country and with each other has been encoded over more than 100 millennia into our stories and into our systems. Genevieve spoke about ways of working—knowing and being—that's what we use today; we just call that culture—we just call that living.

We've had to invent these terms to find ways of translating them into non-Indigenous systems. I'm just no longer interested in that; I want you all to come and sit with me on your own country. I want you all to literally come and sit with me—spend time together—we will talk together; we'll sit together; we'll understand how this country and our relationships work together.

We have an opportunity to give you that gift—to draw on Indigenous practice and philosophy—to bring radically different approaches to all today's problems. Aboriginal culture is continuous and thriving; our cultures are reviving; our languages; our ceremonies are being resurrected and revitalised—and there is knowledge for your benefit.

The gift of Indigenous knowledge is a gift for all of you about how to survive and thrive in this country. [Gathang language of the Worimi people].

I'll stop there for you, Lilly so others can have a chance to speak.

Dr Lilly Brown: Deen, If I was off mute, you would have just heard me clicking and trying to contain myself.

It's a big question right now in our household as well. It's like economic development. For what purpose? What does that mean for the kind of future that we want for our children and for our descendants? For what purpose? 

I am also so grateful that you have gifted everyone on the call today the words of David Mowaljarlai as well. For myself, so much of his writings have become part of my philosophy in life. For those of you who don't know of David Mowaljarlai, the late David Mowaljarlai work, please Google him. Mugabala Books does publish some of his work, so jump on and see if you can find a resource.

Deen, thank you so much. That was just incredible, and I feel really humbled to be in your presence. I know here on the west coast, unless you've got family blood connections to people up here in Rubibi, you don't really call people uncle and auntie. But I know that that's different for us east coast mobs. So Uncle, thank you so much for joining us on the call today. I feel extremely privileged to have your wisdom shared in this context, in this moment for the development of the understory.

I'm going to hand it over now to Rona, but I want to introduce Rona because she is the most incredible woman, and she probably wouldn't introduce herself in that way. Just so you all know, that background is not a Zoom background; that is actually where she's sitting at the moment up on Bundjalung country.

Rona is a Kaytetye  woman who grew up in Mparntwe on Arrernte country with ties to storytelling, economics, and narrative change. Rona works with First Nations organisations to shape future systems that centre First Nations people's knowledge and solutions. Rona is the founding CEO of Common Ground and co-founder and Director of First Nations Futures. She was previously the Director of First Nations at Y Lab, a social enterprise that puts young people with diverse lived experience at the centre of designing and developing innovative and impactful solutions to complex social issues.

Over her career, Rona has worked in policy at the Central Land Council, the Research Unit for Indigenous Languages at the University of Melbourne, Reconciliation Victoria, and the Foundation for Young Australians. Like Deen, that brief introduction does not even begin to scratch the surface.

Rona, it's so obvious that in everything you do—from advising businesses and executives of organisations to working with mob on the ground, and even more recently producing music—you are guided by your old people. What learnings have you got for folks here today? 

Rona Glynn-McDonald: I feel like I'm learning here, listening to such an amazing yarn, and I feel really thankful to have heard what you had to share there.

I am a Kaytetye person from the central desert. My father is Kaytetye. I am connected to Arrernte Country. I'd like to thank the traditional owners of Bundjalung Country where I am today. I grew up on Arrernte Country—a place where I've been held by ancestors, by elders, by community for most of my life. But I'm from a place which is 300 kilometres north of Mparntwe—a bit of scrubby plains that for me is the centre of everything; many people call it the middle of nowhere.

I am very privileged to be here on Bundjalung country as a visitor. I've been here for six days and yes, as Lil said, that background is real. You might see my dog coming here for a sniff or for me to give him a scratch. I've been here chasing the salt and the sun and really entering this green era—this green season—in my life. It's too stinking hot in the desert right now to be up there.

I, like all First Nations people, come from an amazing family of storytellers. Even more specifically, I come from a family of filmmakers and from a young age saw the power of cameras and lenses in shining a mirror up to Australia while also creating space for our communities to tell our stories in our own ways as a form of healing and resistance.

Our families have been telling stories since the first moments of time. But since 1788, the stories held across this continent and surrounding islands by non-Indigenous folk have really centred on the voices, cultures, aspirations, and knowledges—amazing knowledges—that our families have held since the first sunrise.

As a young person, I didn't want to go into the family trade of filmmaking; I was really interested in other things. I was a bit of a nerd—which was confusing for my family—they thought I'd end up in film or photography. I loved school; I really loved school because I loved challenging my teachers and getting into big rips in high school where I would disagree with everything they had to put forward on the table.

One informative moment in my journey was in year 10 when I started studying economics with an amazing teacher called Mr. Mumme. In school and in class, he taught me about all different theories of Western economics: demand, supply, productivity, inflation, and growth—this idea that at the basis and foundation of economics we speak about how people just want to have more, do more, and be more.

I knew that was not true based on how I was raised; it wasn't the foundation of the knowledges that existed in my home. My earliest memories were sitting around the table at my dad's house after school when you'd hear a knock at the door and an old man would walk in—an old man from country—and some family member that I hadn't met before who'd come from out bush. Dad would welcome that old fella and sit at the table with him; they'd share some cups of tea and a yarn or two.

At the end of their yarns, some money would pass over the table—my dad would give that old man a couple hundred dollars—and off that old man would go. Five minutes later my dad would pick up the phone: "Hey Erica," it's my auntie; "you got any money sis? I don't have any." My dad knew that when he had energy—when he'd received money—when he had a job—he had an obligation to share that amongst family; amongst anyone who needed it—and he would also be held by family around him.

That is at the core of what I think is this idea of reciprocity—the idea of keeping balance: when you receive energy or benefit, you redistribute that benefit knowing that in collective care—in collective community—you'll always be held. That's how our communities function at their best; right? And that's not what economics recognises; that's not what I was learning in year 10.

So as a young, vivacious person, I went off to study economics because I wanted to understand more and also wanted to explore what opportunities we had to shift these systems. I attended the University of Melbourne and had many questions going in; I left with even more questions. I don't think I got any of the answers that I wanted. I learned how to calculate inflation, more about utility, and how we measure capital. None of the capital forms of measurement really centred on cultural capital or knowledges, which I knew were core to the way our communities wanted to build our futures, affirm our aspirations, and create our own solutions.

As I left university, I connected with an amazing social change community across Wurundjeri country and Boonwurrung country and came back to storytelling. I recognised that when we look at any system—whether it's the economic system, the education system, the health system, or a business system—those systems are just made up of people. It's the mindsets and beliefs that inform the behaviours of people in those systems that perpetuate the same outcomes.

Since the first moments of colonisation, non-Indigenous Australia has been built on stories founded in colonial mindsets. We can't shift these systems until we shift the storytelling that underpins them. So I came back to storytelling and founded a not-for-profit called Common Ground, which is about creating space for our communities to amplify our voices on our own terms and tell stories in ways that centre our knowledges, our solutions, our experiences, and truth-telling in everything.

It was through this journey of starting my first not-for-profit that I began interacting with the world of philanthropy and funding. It was a really interesting journey that I'm still on today. As I experienced more in the funding space, I began to realise that the inequity we see across funding is one of the core reasons our communities don't have the resources to self-determine our own futures.

A lot of people focus on government funding. For me as a young person, I began to look at how we view this story of wealth across this continent—the funding ecosystem and economic narratives that have enabled people to create huge pockets of wealth that aren't redistributed back to First Nations communities. 

In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter moment, I came together with a collective of mob where we saw a huge influx of capital going to First Nations organisations over just a week when people across this continent realised what was happening here and overseas in the US regarding black, brown, and Indigenous folk globally. In that moment, as there was a huge influx of capital, we saw an amazing amount of money come through the door at Common Ground. But after a week, that funding dried up.

This sparked within me—and this collective—a yearning about what this big story of wealth is. When we look at it across this continent and surrounding islands, all the wealth built here is based on the extraction of country and dispossession of First Nations people—stolen wages, stolen wealth. How do we start talking about this? How do we create space for all of us to come together and yarn about that story?

It's not a new story; it's one First Nations people have been discussing for generations around tables. What is the opportunity now—to use resources and tools we have—to spark conversations around that story? How do we hold a mirror up to non-Indigenous folk and talk about moving towards an economy and future that centres reciprocity? When you receive benefit or energy, how do you redistribute that? 

How do we build a narrative where all Australians are part of this—not just the 1% who have assumed a huge amount of wealth—but everyone who benefits from living on stolen land actively engages in redistributing that benefit? That's the journey that began for me in 2020. 

As I said earlier, it's not a new journey; it's many yarns from many people who have held this yarn before us. It started what is now called First Nations Futures—an organisation created to redistribute wealth and power to First Nations organisations and community-led projects creating intergenerational change while building mechanisms for everyone living across this continent and surrounding islands to be part of that redistribution.

As Lilly said and Deen mentioned, First Nations knowledges—ways of being—have so much benefit not just for our own communities but for everyone. At First Nations Futures, we use really intentional language such as co-investment—not talking about giving or handouts—but about how we collectively come together to invest in First Nations communities so we can build our own futures on our own terms. On those terms, our knowledges and cultures can also benefit everyone living across this continent.

Reciprocity is at the core. When we look at the future and build right relationships across this continent—actively engaging in reciprocity and building communities of collective care—that's a model that can extend beyond everything I think about.

At First Nations Futures, the work we're doing is not just about redistributing wealth; it's also about how we build a future story as a nation where we all hold each other accountable—where someone can knock on the door and $200 goes across the table—and then $200 comes from someone else. We are actively in right relationship with one another—not just within First Nations communities but across all communities as well.

In terms of today's provocation—which I really love—exploring how we might centre and create futures where First Nations knowledges and relationships are at the heart of who we are across this continent excites me greatly. This conversation around economics is invigorating; I love getting my nerd on! There's so much opportunity to think about future systems placing our mob's country and truth-telling at their centre.

Social enterprise is such an amazing vehicle for that. At First Nations Futures, we're developing some models which we'll be yarning about publicly more in the next few months—looking at how we extend our work across philanthropy and general Australians into social enterprise—creating more opportunities for social enterprises to back First Nations organisations and initiatives while building up our futures based on redistribution and reciprocity.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you, Rona. You're an absolute inspiration.

And like I said before you kind of came on, I watch what you're doing in our community in terms of the places that you exist in physically, but also in terms of your family and across the nation. I know that the legacy you're going to leave behind after you've gone—which is not for a very long time now—is just going to be so immense because I think you change hearts and minds wherever you go. You're really changing the narrative in the philanthropy space, which is so needed.

So I just, yeah, I have a lot to be thankful for when I listen to you speak and I'm in your presence and have the gift of your wisdom. It's really great that we have Blaze following you because something that I learned very early on from Blaze as a mentor—he was a mentor to me in my early 20s—was a lot about reciprocity and what that means.

Blaze, I'm going to introduce you; I hope you don't feel too awkward about that. But again, I think my engagement with Blaze in my early years means that in part I would blame him for what I have turned out to be. So it's a real honour to meet him here again in this context.

Like all presenters here today, Blaze wears many hats. He's a Palyku traditional owner from the Inland Pilbara region of WA. He's an academic, writer, children's author, and business owner. Over his professional life, he has held many positions, including Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at the University of Western Australia before moving into the private sector in community engagement, cultural heritage, and native title.

More recently, Blaze has settled into his current career as a business owner and an entrepreneur of many initiatives, including Australian Indigenous Coffee. He is also the chairperson of Emu Nest Investment Group. Blaze has said that his business philosophy is straightforward: like water. Too much wealth is a flood and too little is a drought. First you feed yourself, then you feed your family, then you invest the rest back into the community that supports you and on whose shoulders you stand.

Blaze, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do and what the prompt guiding today's session means to you? If you can get what you do right in relation to First Nations people, your work with all people will benefit.

Dr Blaze Kwaymullina: Thanks. Lilly, can you hear me okay? Yep. If it's all right, I might get to the prompt at the end. I was just thinking this morning about how sometimes it's hard to work out how to frame your story a bit, but this is a bit left of centre. 

I made this guy yesterday—I don't know if you can see this strange creature—just to give you an idea. He's made out of wool, spinifex wire, and some raffia. I'm here in my mum's studio as we speak. I made him yesterday. I popped over to my mum's house and saw some materials there; I felt compelled to make this dude. So I threw him together and was gripped by the process.

For our family, the way we carry out entrepreneurship and social impact is no different from making that strange-looking man. We do things that compel us—that intrude upon our consciousness—and need to be brought into the world; you know, like how a mother brings a child into the world. That's what businesses are.

Entrepreneurs see things people can't see; they feel things others aren't feeling, and they bring it into being with their hands, their actions—they nurture it into existence. We come from that kind of process where business is a ceremony; it's a cultural practice. That is the horse that pulls the cart.

The economics of it—the technical configurations—can be quite difficult sometimes and detailed about how you structure commercial models; that's the cart. But the horse that pulls it is values—a spiritual alignment—a ceremonial alignment; it's a cultural practice. Sometimes we can get confused about what's the horse and what's the cart because we have such a strong focus on economics.

I thought I'd start with that because it helps tell our story from how we approach things. Briefly on our origin story: we're a family of creative visual artists, writers, and academics—not business people. Eleven years ago we got into business because we had a crisis in the family; we had a family member who was very physically ill and we needed more money for some emergency surgeries in the short term.

We also faced challenges regarding how our family members with intellectual or physical disabilities—or talents that may not be easily taken up by mainstream systems—would have quality lives and be able to economically provide for themselves. We thought people seem to do this business stuff; maybe it could make some extra money to solve our short-term crisis.

But two: if we can get hold of organisations, we could give people jobs and livelihoods that other organisations wouldn't invest in them for—but we would invest in them because we think they have value and they have much to give.

This led us into pooling our talents and money as a small family—a small kinship network—and we created a family trust before starting to build businesses. The first one was a creative writing cooperative where we started co-publishing children's books. Then we began running micro-enterprises to teach ourselves about what business was.

If you run a small micro-enterprise turning over even just $20,000, you learn everything about business—invoicing, sales, marketing—and incorporating companies; scaling up is just an extension of that learning process.

The compelling reason for us to get into business was actually life or death; we generated enough money for an emergency surgery that if it hadn't happened when it did, that family member would have been dead in six months! When you love someone and need money for that purpose, you're highly motivated as an entrepreneur.

As we solved some of our short-term economic constraints, we wanted to expand our impact for other Aboriginal families so we could share wealth and opportunity based on what we managed to build. We've actually been incredibly successful with what we've done.

We've been in business for 11 years now. We've bought businesses, sold businesses, and started up businesses. We've been through all the cycles of business maturity. We have about six businesses now and employ over 140 people. We'd probably be in the top 10 Aboriginal businesses in WA by annual revenue. We have about seven other Aboriginal families that are co-investors and co-shareholders. Across the businesses, we like to partner with some non-Aboriginal investors and shareholders as well. We're comfortable with partnerships; we know how to build value in them, whether they're Indigenous or non-Indigenous.

We have a mix of shareholders: some things we earn 100%, some 50%, some 51%, some 10%, and some 25%. We play around with different types of models and partners. We've done about $40 million in Aboriginal economic impact over the last decade. That's the amount of money our businesses have spent on Aboriginal wages, Aboriginal supplies, and Aboriginal community projects. You add all that up, and you get a direct economic impact measure of around $40 million over the last decade.

Each of our businesses runs slightly different local economic or social impact models because every business is a different kind of kinship network and has different values to offer the community. Therefore, the models that iterate in those businesses and the services that may be of value to the community are different. For example, one business is our waste business; we do pro bono bin services and help communities with cleanups. Another has printing capability, and we're doing free printing for Aboriginal funerals, and so on.

The value businesses have for the community also depends on their services. It's beneficial to build impact around the services themselves rather than something unrelated. Those are the kinds of models we've built. We have been iterating the utilitarian and pragmatic aspects of that for a decade now, which can be quite difficult.

Often, what you find in well-intentioned social enterprises or for-profit entities is two extremes: one is too much focus on economics on one end, while the other is too much focus on social value without really diving deep into how to commercialise that in the market. Capacity building in a social enterprise comes at a cost. So how do you mitigate that cost? How do you iterate your entire business system—from return on capital required to shareholders, alignment through to operations management system specifications, customer value proposition? 

You have to build non-monetary values at the core of the whole engine to make it commercial. You have to work twice as hard to accomplish something that's a lot easier if you just focus on making money. So you've got to be smarter; you've got to be more entrepreneurial; you've got to be more creative; you've got to have more energy; you’ve got to do a lot more things if you're trying to take capitalism and do something broader than what the system itself is designed to reward and incentivise.

That's basically what we've been working through over the last decade—various iterations of how to do that—and there are no easy answers. Every market and every business is different. The people you may partner with or borrow money from or have as co-shareholders or leaders in your business bring different talents. 

This creates a very dynamic moving feast of how you can figure that out. That's why I said at the start: what's the horse and what's the cart? It can be very complicated. You always have to return to that fundamental cultural practice driver and have faith that it's going to get you where you need to go. As long as you can stick to that, you'll get where you need to be.

I would also make the point here: I see businesses a bit like an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that sticks out above water is the economic component of the business—it's obvious, people can see it; it's easily quantifiable. You know, you have revenue; then you have net profit—it's easy to build structures around.

But under the water is your social value, cultural value, environmental value, and spiritual value that businesses—particularly small businesses—create all the time. Take any business; it has far more non-monetary value than monetary value. All businesses do. People meet their wives and husbands at work; it's a social network—it's a kinship network.

So much happens in the workplace; so much happens in business—the collection of people from customers and suppliers to shareholders come together to create value. Most of that value is non-monetary, while this little bit that sticks out of the water is monetary. You've got to get that right because otherwise you're insolvent and don't have a business.

But business is actually an amazing engine of transformation; it's just that we've locked into a system where we don't have easy ways to quantify and value non-monetary values in the market. It's very awkward trying to quantify and value those parts of a business's value proposition.

A lot of it is invisible; a lot of it is under water—but it's there, and it happens. We're getting increasingly sophisticated in this space globally regarding balancing those types of values philosophically.

In the Q&A, if people have questions or want to chat over coffee about some technical configurations related to these types of things, that's fine—we can have those discussions! I'm more interested in marrying philosophy with technical stuff; however, my philosophy may differ from what you've been used to hearing.

When we got into business, one thing I thought about was this: what's the purpose of a human being? In an Aboriginal worldview, what's your reason for being? I thought about it deeply: your reason for being is to receive, create, and distribute value through kinship networks—through practices of reciprocity—in a way that sustains people and Country.

In our philosophy, from the moment you're born—you're breathing oxygen—which exists because we would say plants have their own law; they produce oxygen based on their law. So from birth, you are already a recipient of reciprocity from the world.

You can't exist, you can't breathe, you can't move, you can't even exist as a human being without being the recipient of reciprocity from the environment that you co-inhabit. So we're always receiving reciprocity from the world—always. 

The question then really becomes: I'm receiving all this reciprocity; how do I pass that reciprocity back in three relational networks? How do I create more value to push reciprocity back through the system, and how do I distribute it? So really, it's about value. Reciprocity is a value distribution allocation mechanism, and there are cultural frameworks about how that's done. Your role as a human being is to be the recipient of value; then how do you create value and push that through relational networks? 

But it’s value that sustains things. It's not just any value; it's value that is sustainable in the long term for the environment, the world we live in, and the people who co-inhabit it. That becomes the design principles of what a human being is supposed to do. 

So then you might ask, well, what's a business? A business is just a kinship network; it's not more complicated than that. It's a collection of human beings who come together to create value—that's all a business is. A business kinship network can be constrained a bit; you could say it's its shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, and the communities where you operate. 

You can constrain that kinship network by describing it as an unusual kinship system because it has to generate a minimum amount of economic value to distribute or it can't exist—otherwise you're insolvent. Those are probably the two constraints you would put on delineating a business as a kinship system or relational system. Outside of those limitations, you are as free as you can imagine to create and iterate things.

People often don't take up that level of creativity with business; they tend to copy what's out there. But actually, it is a very blank canvas to play with. We see business as a cultural practice—a ceremonial practice—a kinship network composed of employees, shareholders, customers, and community suppliers. We need to bring those relationships together to create and distribute value according to practices of reciprocity in a way that promotes a sustainable world for everyone.

To me, that's really the philosophical background of what a business is—what we're describing it as. If we describe business and economic systems in the language of Aboriginal philosophy, that's how I would try to articulate what it is.

This brought me to two questions downstream from that perspective regarding how to build something when you're creating a business. The first question becomes: what are the practices of value creation and reciprocity that will apply to this entity? This dictates how you cohere that kinship network; it dictates who your co-investors are, who your shareholders are, what communities you operate in, and how you build up your value proposition.

Because they're all different, they'll have different iterations based on the people involved. Different people give you different kinship networks, which means you iterate the structure slightly differently. That's the first design question that emerged from this philosophy and impacts how our family builds things.

The second downstream part of that is: how do you create a healthy kinship network? If a kinship network is a relationship network, what makes one healthy and what makes one sick? I looked at some traditional practices around reciprocity to extract some underlying principles from them. I came up with four guiding principles for our family: autonomy, accountability, belonging, and trust.

I won't go through all of those because we'll run out of time. The first two—autonomy and accountability—speak to the individual; the second two—belonging and trust—speak to the network or group. I'll touch on those.

Belonging is an easy one: you're part of an organisation somewhere with either a high sense of belonging or a low sense of belonging. You can ask your coworkers; people know straight away whether they feel a sense of belonging to that organisation or not. Low belonging equals low productivity because it's a sign of sickness in a kinship network.

You can try to counteract low belonging with economic incentives—"I know you hate your job but I'll pay you twice as much"—but then you start creating problems for yourself when trying to fix it. Some people are very motivated by economic incentives; most people aren't—or it's a mix or blend.

Ideally, you want high belonging because high belonging leads to high productivity organisations. If you've got a kinship network with a high sense of belonging, that's a good metric for whether it's thriving in its relationships. You can apply this principle to marriages or relationships with your kids; these are relational principles.

Belonging is the first one: every decision we make in our businesses asks whether this will increase or decrease belonging. That doesn't mean you won't make decisions that decrease belonging; sometimes there's a short-term decrease for long-term gain. But be aware of what you're doing because belonging isn't an infinite pool from which you can draw down.

If you empty that pool, catastrophic problems will occur in your organisation. So when we make decisions, we're very clear about whether we're increasing or reducing belonging through this strategy or these actions—is customer belonging going down? Is supplier belonging declining? Is employee belonging affected? Are other shareholders feeling diminished in their connection to this story and this business?

Because we will pay a price for that. You have to be very strategic in how you apply those decisions. The second one is a bit more complicated: trust. I'm going to run out of time in a sec, so I'll finish on this one.

When we say trust in business, it normally means if my self-interest and your self-interest are aligned, I trust you to act in your own interest and be predictable—to do what you said you were going to do because it's in your own interest to do so. So we really talk about aligned self-interest in business. That's actually what fuels 90% of the capitalistic philosophy.

In the Aboriginal sense, trust means if I've got a kinship network, each member of that kinship network has to believe that the other members would sacrifice some of their self-interest so that they and their families can be looked after. I don't even need to show up and have a fight with people over resources because even if I'm not there, I know the group will sacrifice some of their self-interest to make sure I have enough.

If you can answer that question positively, you've got an incredibly strong kinship network in that organisation. The relational network is strong. If you can't answer that, it means people come into the network to fight for resources that they do not believe others are going to give them, leading to a cascading dysfunctional effect seen in many community organisations.

Sometimes where you've got scarcity issues, you get poverty mindsets; you don't have growth mindsets, and you have many derivative problems. We are always trying to ensure that trust question—whether people believe we would make less money to look after them—is addressed. 

You encounter additional problems in our community when no one has anything to give. Some members of our community's value is locked up socially, culturally, economically, and otherwise; they do not have any value to give back to the kinship network. As a leader designing and engineering a healthy business, you need to identify parts of your organisation where people lack something to give up.

We have to build their capacity to create surplus value. Once they have surplus economic value, it will unlock their social value and cultural value or unlock the spiritual resources they have to allocate back into the kinship network. It's not always about sacrificing economic value; it could be spiritual.

Many Aboriginal businesses will pay a spiritual elder to come and engage with the business; they bring spiritual value. They may not necessarily bring economic value, but they can contribute spiritual value because you unlock them economically by providing them an income stream, which then allows them to contribute back into the kinship network.

I'll stop here because I'm about out of time. Just a quick note on the prompt: I think the prompt is the wrong question. If you come to the table asking how this is going to benefit me, you're asking how we can align self-interests. That's an aligned self-interest question.

I'm more interested in saying: if you have curiosity, then you're welcome. If something compels you, you're welcome. If something grips you to engage, learn things, listen, and also contribute something, then you're welcome. If it's about convincing me on a cost-benefit analysis of what benefit it is for me to engage, I'm not as interested because that's a fragile relationship.

I think most of our communities—particularly after the referendum—are more interested in deeper relationships. So I'll finish there. 

Dr Lilly Brown: Blaze, thank you.

As you were speaking towards the end, someone wrote to me and said this guy needs to write a book; he has such an amazing philosophical brain. I could also see Rona geeking out big time! So I think you two need to connect and talk a little bit more.

I'm feeling really overwhelmed and humbled by all the knowledge everyone has shared. We have about 10 minutes before Deen has to jump off, and I want to have a little Q&A so we can hold some space collectively for everyone who has come onto the call today.

My brain is overflowing with great questions from the chat. I'm going to start with one that may seem simple at first but is really important in this moment—especially with all these people who joined today.

I want to start with you, Deen. From Kylie: for those of us who want to listen and understand more, where is the best place to start? I think this speaks a little bit, Blaze, to what you talked about regarding curiosity. Deen, do you have any ideas for people on the call? Where's the best place for those who want to do more in this space?

Prof Deen Sanders: Thanks, Lilly, and thank you for that question. There's definitely a place to start, but I just have to give a shout-out there to Minna—I've really enjoyed watching her put that young fella in that car seat and see those feet waving about! It was a bit of a distraction.

Blaze—I gotta tell your brother he needs to yarn more! But for those of you who weren't watching, that was like a little sideshow during this particular yarn—so shout out to Minna!

As I was hinting at earlier, I am nothing without my country. My country defines me; it is who I am—it's my blood; it's my DNA; it's everything that informs me—including my science and my law (L-A-W) as well as lore. I lead an economics practice at Deloitte; we are experts in this field—but all of that only makes sense in the context of lore.

The absolute place to start is on Country. The absolute place to start is sitting in that place—come and sit with me; come and sit with others—and we will just be in that process together. Country is our teacher.

All that stuff Blaze shared with you is beautiful knowledge about coming from our relationships. Our relationships are with country; they are of country; they are for country. Our kinship systems exist within those processes. Country is our teacher—we've learned that; we've learned its language; we've learned how those things work because country is our teacher.

And I know it's going to sound like a flippant answer, but it's the deepest possible answer I can give you: you're sitting on country, and it is the teacher. Economics makes sense. Economic systems and complexity theory—that's one of my PhDs. Complexity theory and law come from country. It's not rocket science; who I thought it was. I thought I was being clever, learning all that sort of stuff in the academic sense, until I sat with my elders back then when I was young, and they said that's just ability knowledge. Boy, of course it is! I wish they had told me that before I spent six years doing it. That would have been slightly helpful to understand that this stuff comes from country, from our relationships to these places.

Economics comes from Country; leadership comes from Country systems and the livingness of systems. Uncle David Mowaljarlai point in his book *Yorro Yorro* is that everything standing up alive is a story of Country. That's an easy answer because when you're sitting on Country with me, we can then have a deep and proper conversation about how all this stuff matters.

If you can't be with us, sit there by yourself and listen for the language of economics in the systems around you. Look at what those ants are doing; look at what that tree is doing; look at what those plants are doing; look at what the sun is doing and how those systems are in relationship with each other and how that leads to growth in all things. That's what our economics is about—how everything grows, how everything stands up alive when you pay attention to the relationships in the system as opposed to only the outputs.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you so much, Deen. Does anyone else? Rona, do you have a comment on that? What's something, just briefly, that you would like to share in terms of getting started?

Rona Glynn-McDonald: My answer would have been the same as Deen's there. When the question was asked, that's where I first went—just being present in this space right where I am now, which is not my country. I'm a visitor here, but as a visitor here, to sit and listen and be present in this space is something that I've learned a lot from. Starting from place and starting from that space is exactly how I would approach that as well. Constantly returning to that is such a powerful thing.

There are so many opportunities and tools for non-Indigenous folk to engage with our communities now—whether that's online or in person—but those relationships are only sustained when we take time to spiral in and out, to sit still in country and reflect. We also need to recognise that we never have all the answers; the answers come from country, and they are often shifting as well.

As a young person—I'm still young at 28—I’ve been told many times by my elders that I need to sit down. This year, my aspiration was to literally sit down, and I'm here constantly learning from that. I think everyone can too; it's such a powerful gift to be able to sit in country and learn from the places we're in while growing connections to where we go.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you, Rona. I keep thinking about what Blaze said regarding that baby whose first breath is oxygen gifted by trees. Looking at you there with that beautiful greenscape behind you, knowing that's exactly what you're doing now is really lovely to me.

Gen, I'm going to ask you based on a comment from one of the audience members who asked if panellists can speak to the silence of the sector. Speaking up and taking action is part of social enterprise work. What role do social enterprises have in that kind of advocacy space?

Genevieve Grieves: I'm really influenced by your research and your work, Lilly, where you identify where these silences come from—in terms of non-Indigenous people—and the fear they have in speaking up: fear of saying the wrong thing or being unintentionally racist. There is so much fear and worry among non-Indigenous people about actually speaking up or taking action.

That's a significant block for us in making effective change because it has to be collaborative work—we need people working alongside us; we need people shifting the systems we're in; we need support for community aspirations. In our training, we always encourage people to take action—not rushing out thinking they know what the best thing to do is or being a white saviour—but taking deep, considered action in partnership with First Nations people and communities.

You're making yourself an effective tool for change. Regarding first steps: there's so much you can read and engage with; even understanding the story of the country you're on is such an important first step. Then work out how you can be an effective ally or accomplice—whatever word you use.

The way I was taught by my elders is that this is collaborative work; we can't do it alone—we have to do it together. One elder comes from an organisation called the Koorie Heritage Trust in Melbourne that he established: Uncle Jim Berg—Gunditjmara elder. The motto of that organisation is "GNOKAN DANNA MURRA KOR-KI—"Give me your hand, my friend." That was the ethos he taught me and many others about how we do this work.

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you so much, Gen. I'm really conscious of time, but Blaze, I'm going to ask you if you have anything else to add before we start wrapping up?

Dr Blaze Kyawmullina: I would probably just follow on from your previous question by saying we have this unusual situation in Australia where we have this absolutely vibrant Aboriginal entrepreneurship space growing like a weed year on year—and then we have this social enterprise space—and it's like two railroad tracks running side by side with no crossing points. It's quite bizarre, and it's reflected in institutions as well.

So my answer would be not at an individual practitioner level; there is a deficit in the institutional network systems between the Aboriginal business chambers, Supply Nation, the social traders, and the kind of social enterprise bodies that are trying to represent groups of those businesses. The interface is weak. 

It's true internally as well. Internally in the Aboriginal space, our relationship between the institutions that are promoting us is weak. They don't collaborate well, and I think that's also true in the social enterprise sector to some extent. We've got those problems already internally, and then they’re magnified when we're trying to figure out how those bridges cross.

There's definitely some rich intellectual and relational work to be done entity to entity, organisation to organisation in terms of these representative bodies. Sometimes there's politics and personal issues involved, which just need to get out of the way because we're too small a sector to be arguing with each other—it's a waste of everyone's time.

We need to build those bridges because it's hard if you're an individual practitioner doing something. You are under so much pressure out there to deliver your social mission while also being profitable, and you have all sorts of demands on you from your personal circumstances and family. You may be the only person in a network that has capacity, so people are calling on you. You don't necessarily have the surplus time or capacity to pick up some of this work.

The institutions need to pick that up; our representative bodies need to pick that up. We need to support those bodies to do that work where we can. That's the framework that individual practitioners can sit in. My comment is that we need to find a better way to knit the sector together.

Thank you so much. Probably the most perfect note! Can I jump in just to say goodbye? Thank you! But just to follow up, because I see Celia has asked a question about texts and resources. There are, of course, books we can reflect on regarding economic texts. There's a growing body of economic science and business technologies related to our ways of thinking.

Those references can be had, and you're all invited to read them. But really, the conversations begin with people. Kinship systems aren't written systems; they are systems of relationship. Find those relationships, find those connections—call us for yarn. Every one of us fills those responsibilities deeply.

Prof Deen Sanders: I'm not trying to preempt Sherryl's answer, as I see she appears to be typing one. Nonetheless, the idea is one of relationships and conversation. Unfortunately, with that, I do have to say [Gathang language of the Worimi people] In our language, that means "speak soon" and [Gathang language of the Worimi people] Thank you for this time together.

I know you might continue talking, but I have to jump off unfortunately. 

Dr Lilly Brown: Thank you so much, Deen; we really appreciate your time.

So off the back of Blaze and Deen, I actually want to plug Social Enterprise Australia. I don't do this because I feel compelled since they've hosted us today; I really want to emphasise that for the Understorey we are the first webinar kicking that off. That's not a coincidence; it's because Social Enterprise Australia as the peak body now exists for social enterprise values so fundamentally and deeply what we as First Nations people have to offer this space.

I invite all of you to sit with that and take seriously what we've shared today. See Social Enterprise Australia as that peak body—the fact that they value us and understand our importance for the work they do. That's what we hope you realise by participating in this webinar.

We're going to drop a link into Zoom for another Menti poll because I want a word from each of you reflecting how you're feeling on your way out of here. Then I'm going to hand it back to Jess so she can wrap up.

I want to thank all the contributors today; I knew I was going to learn something but didn't realise how much and how profound it would be! So thank you so much, Blaze, Rona, Gen, and Deen—now he's gone. I feel humbled by everything you've brought today.

As I start my weekend—I was pretty tired at first—but someone said they felt buoyant at the beginning, and that's how I'm leaving this webinar! So thanks, Jess and team; thank you to all contributors; and thank you for spending your lunch break with us today.

I can see some of these words in the chat reflecting how everyone feels similarly. Jess, I'm going to hand it over to you now.

Jess Moore: Thanks, Lilly! I'm so grateful for this conversation today. I was recently in a workshop facilitated by Lily where she asked the room: "Who are you?" That question was so hard for me to answer—it says so much about the work still needed.

Thank you so much, Lilly and Gen—and thanks to the team behind the scenes at Shifting Ground: Maya Ghattas and Andrea Distefano. Thank you Rona, Deen, and Blaze for sharing your insights, experiences, and time today—for inviting us into your world and allowing us to learn from you while shifting systems together.

Thank you Andrew Leigh for supporting today's event and our field. Thank you everyone online here today! We hope this first Social Enterprise Development Initiative Learning event was worth the wait.

It's really important that this work continues to be shaped by you all. Before you jump off, please take a minute to complete the survey popping up on your screen now.

Finally, I want to acknowledge and thank the teams at Social Enterprise Australia and the Department of Social Services who are supporting the development of Understorey and learning communities: shout out to Christina Chun, Caragh Porter, Liz Armitage, Athanasia Price, Sherryl Reddy from Social Enterprise Australia; Judy Cyngler and Alexia Tribe from the Department of Social Services.

Keep an eye out for the Social Enterprise Development Initiative calendar of free connective and collaborative Open Learning events in 2025. Thank you so much all!

Last updated: January 2025