Something special: Former MP Sharman Stone, Munarra chairperson Travis Morgan, club legend Paul Briggs, Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Nicholls Steve Brooks and ASHE manager Leonie Dwyer out the front of Rumbalara’s change rooms.
The premiership flags hang from the roof and sun streams through the glass windows at the clubrooms at Rumbalara Football Netball Club, with tables set out and neatly arranged ready for an important afternoon activity.
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A federal minister is in town for a discussion that will completely re-shape how Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-operative goes about its work, but this grand room — full of history, photos and the community’s culture — won’t host him.
As students begin to roll in for homework club, Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, along with club founder Paul Briggs, current president Josh Atkinson and nearly a dozen other Yorta Yorta leaders pack into the one of the old rooms under the awning on the wing while 40 students wander into the clubroom.
It speaks volumes about Rumbalara’s priorities — no one, not even a federal minister, is more important than the children’s future.
It’s cramped around the old table and hot, with canteen fridges humming in the background.
Those fridges are the only other sound in the room as Mr Briggs speaks, because his quiet voice carries authority.
“The work that we’re doing is trying to find a future living on Country,” he said.
“It’s something Aboriginal people can aspire to.”
Mr Colbeck has been invited to look at plans to expand the co-operative’s footprint in the north of Shepparton, beyond the club itself.
Rumbalara FNC is requesting funding for the Munarra Centre of Regional Excellence, which will be part of an expanded precinct in Shepparton’s north.
In discussion: Federal Sports Minister Richard Colbeck speaking to Rumbalara’s Paul Briggs. Photo: Max Stainkamph
MCRE would be run by Munarra Limited, a non-profit partnering with Rumbalara, Melbourne University and Kaelia Institute, with the Academy of Sport, Health and Education moved from the centre of town to the precinct at Rumbalara, which would also be upgraded as part of the plan.
It would bring together education, culture, the arts and sport, Mr Briggs said, and help build key infrastructure to help the community grow.
The upgrade to the football and netball club was one of the key drivers.
“Sport is the catch,” Mr Briggs said.
“When we first launched the club, we had 80 per cent unemployed,’’ he said.
“Now we’re 80 per cent employed, and it’s been like that a few years.
“We’ve got PhD students coming out of the club.”
He gestures back to the clubrooms — most of the students doing homework club have come to Rumbalara on the back of their love of sport, and seeing the men and women they look up to have homes, jobs, families and more has inspired them to do the same.
Goulburn-Murray Regional Prosperity Plan co-chair Dave McKenzie said the Federal Government needed to strike while the iron was hot.
“With the right support and the right signals from the other stakeholders, including the Federal Government, we have the opportunity to do something pretty significantly, really in the short to medium term, because all the planets are lining up, (it) just needs a bit of a catalytic investment,” he said.
Mr Colbeck, as well as Liberal candidate for the federal seat of Nicholls Steve Brooks, who accompanied the minister on his visit, and former local federal member Sharman Stone, don’t say much in the meeting beyond a few questions.
When discussion turns to migrants using Rumbalara’s services and playing with the club, the minister said sport was a universal language, one of the most powerful tools to unite humanity has.
Following discussion on the outcomes for the First Nations community and how the proposal was a break from previous funding models to one of investment, Mr Brooks spoke.
“What I love about this is it didn’t come from this deficit model of ‘here’s the problem, come and throw money at it here’, which is what you were saying the old way of looking at it was — you’ve got this aspirational goal and target and you’re saying you want our Indigenous people thriving,” Mr Brooks said.
The meeting winds up, and the figures leave the table and spill out along the oval, with a barbecue going and people arriving for training.
There’s not a commitment to funding — there never is, after these meetings — but more discussions are pencilled in.
The figures in the room, serious leaders making serious pitches, are laughing and joking and talking with their community, immediately swept away by someone or another, immediately swept back into the fabric of the club, of the community.
