2025 SA Senior Australian of the Year Charles Jackson OAM

Australian Community Media

Meet Your Australians - 2025 SA Senior Australian of the Year Charles Jackson OAM. ACM is proud to be media partner for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards.

Transcript

00:00I'm a very traditional individual from the Flinders Ranges, I'm from the Adjamantha

00:08Cultural Group and I speak my language very well.

00:11My mum, she gave birth to 14 children and not one of us were actually born in a hospital,

00:20including myself, we were all born in a creek bed.

00:22I think she, when she gave birth to me, that she already had a vision for me.

00:28Well I've worked in Indigenous Affairs now for well over 50 years and in my role I've

00:35always advocated for the most vulnerable in our society.

00:41I am engaged with the people at the grassroots level and in particular, especially the elderly

00:49people in our communities and to be able to listen and to be able to, you know, take their

00:56concerns to the next level and especially dealing with local government, state government

01:03and also on a federal level as well.

01:06I want recognition for the First Nations people in Australia, the oldest living culture in

01:12the world of 60,000 years and to be able to work with both parties, to be able to develop

01:18a bipartisan agreement whereby that they come up with a model that is acceptable, whereby

01:26that they can actually present it to the broader community in Australia.

01:29I think, you know, within our community, I'm talking about the First Nations people, is

01:35that, you know, there's an enormous amount of intergenerational trauma and that's caused

01:41as a result of a number of other factors and these are some of the things that I'd like

01:46to talk to government, whether it's state or federal, and to see how we can deal with

01:52those trauma that's having an enormous amount of impact on our younger generation.

01:59And I've got a very good understanding about actually identifying what are the key subject

02:06in terms of the policies and if I can share some of those knowledge with everybody, and

02:12I think that I'll be very, very proud to know that I've been able to reach out to not only

02:18the young people but also to the elderly as well.

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