Pride in giving voice to a community

ROBBIE MINITER OAM is a Goreng Noongar man whose life has taken him from the Gnowangerup Aboriginal Reserve to OAM recipient. He recently spoke with Paula Deegan at the Gnowangerup Noongar Centre in south-western Australia.

June 2026

The OAM came as a surprise, to be honest. I’m still waiting for them to come and take it back! One day in 2018 someone said to me I’d been nominated for an Order of Australia Medal for services to the Indigenous community.

I worked for the Shire of Gnowangerup for 20 years. But then it was time for me to move on and I got an opportunity through the Wirrpanda Foundation (now known as the Waalitj Foundation) to increase sports participation, culture and recreation in sporting clubs and communities. So that led to developing a model around cultural awareness and then starting to influence sporting clubs to try and improve sports participation by Noongar kids, and we managed to do that.

I started working with young fellows, helping them make better choices and decisions, become more aware of their environment, and how they can show respect and accept responsibility for families, grandparents. Many of us have been impacted by drugs and alcohol and that’s all come from generational trauma through the Stolen Generation. There was a big need to try to help the young fellas break out of that.

I mentored 24 young men over in Kojonup based around things like sports participation and cultural awareness but also around respect for family.  I still have those 24 men ring me and there’s only two that have since been involved in the justice system. So that shows that things can change and it rolled on from there.

I worked with local governments, delivering 13 cultural awareness workshops in nine months that helped engage people. I still had people ringing and saying, “Please can you come and do cultural awareness with us?”. They could see the benefits in breaking down the barriers within our communities.

Over 12 months, I signed 736 kids’ sport applications, and that got those kids into several different sports.

So, I went from working with one local government to working with 11 local governments and then working across the board all hours. I’d be out most nights in the vulnerable hours when most communities and most agencies aren’t out there because they work from 9:00 to 5:00. And I was out there at night, you know, trying to work with these families — and that’s why I got nominated for the OAM.

And that’s been one of the highlights of my life.

I’ve always lived in Gnowangerup. My dad’s family first moved here from around Borden back in the early 1930s. Before that they lived out in bush camps but then the government policies brought Noongars together onto reserves.

My great-grandfather, Roy Miniter, went off to World War II and when he came back he married my great-grandmother, Esther Woods, and settled down at the foot of the Stirling Range at a small place called Martaquinnup. He had to make a sad choice between his Noongar wife and his non-Aboriginal family. He chose his wife, and they had eight children together, including my grandmother, Isobel Miniter. When he sadly passed, he owned a fair bit of land around Borden and Martaquinnup, and he’d leased a few other blocks.

Those blocks had to be handed back to the government, and my great-grandmother was forced to move back onto the Borden Reserve because there was no way that they were going to let her keep the farms. They say that she was one of the hardest working ladies around, doing mallee root picking, rock picking, and she would make sure that she supported other Noongars and found work for them too.

My grandmother, Isobel, moved here to Gnowangerup where she gave birth to my dad, Robert Miniter, in 1957, and they lived on the Gnowangerup Mission and then the Gnowangerup Reserve.

My mum, Caroline Smith, and her mother Pruella Smith (nee Woods) were both born in Gnowangerup too. My mum’s sadly gone now, but she lived most of her days here in Gnowangerup, moving here as a young girl in the 1950s. I was born at the hospital here and then lived at the reserve for the first five years of my life. That was a massive experience as a young person — being with all the Noongar people up on the reserve, surrounded by 150 or 200 Noongars living there. We were then relocated into town.

That’s how it was under those policies then, first Noongars were segregated on those missions and the reserves and then the policy became assimilation, and we were moved into the community. To go from the reserve where you knew all the Noongars and then be transitioned into the community had a massive impact. And then the next thing we knew, you were attending kindergartens and schools.

I had two blessed and loving grandmothers. When we moved off the reserve, my two grandmothers lived about 100 metres away from each other, so I had the privilege of going between them.

In 1980 I started at the kindergarten, and later I attended Gnowangerup District High School for 10 years. We had become part of this new system, and we tried to become more educated, but when our kids got a little bit ahead of things, we were put into this old house that was up on the grass where no other kids would go, only the Noongar kids. They’d have kids who would play up at times and they’d be put in there, and the kids who got ahead would be put there as well, so you were just held back. Where’s the learning in that? You wanted to try and seek better jobs and opportunities but a lot of people just fell through the cracks.

I completed Year 10 in Gnowangerup and then travelled to school in Katanning in Year 11. Then at the age of 18, after going to Perth and trying out for the footy up there, I came home and stayed in the area.

Footy played a massive part in my life. I used to play cricket and basketball, but footy was always the one that gave me opportunities. I put in for a job at the Shire of Gnowangerup and they said I could have the job if I played football for Gnowangerup. I got the job and once I was in there, I took every opportunity that came along. Even today I remind the Shire I’m living proof of a young Noongar boy from the area being given an opportunity and going on to work for 20 years — starting as a trainee, then progressing to General Hand, machine operator, then supervisor and manager. And now I’m a Shire Councillor, so I’ve done the full loop.

I still do work for the Shire but in a different capacity through the small business I’ve built, Yaakiny Services. I developed a passion for helping younger fellas and bringing two worlds together. And this is where I see myself, where you’ve got the Wadjela world and the Noongar world, and I’ve developed a business around them, based in sport and then trying to develop opportunities for young Noongar people to take the same path that I did.

We’ve just completed some works with the Shire where I worked with two other guys from the Brethren community, and we won the tender for some gravel sheeting works. That gave us the opportunity to take on a few more young Noongar boys. We had one on roller operations, and a couple working in traffic control. I believe that if you can help build their capacity, it sets young fellas up for life.

In about 2012, I became Chairperson of the Gnowangerup Aboriginal Corporation. Two of my old aunties stood up at a meeting at the Noongar Centre and said they believed I should be the chairperson.

I was like a fish out of water there for the first couple of years but then I started to develop networks and build my own capacity.  For the following 12 years it was a battle but we got through it because we started to develop a vision for not only the corporation, but for our people in general.

One of the achievements to come out of that is the Ngowanjerindj Ranger Program. We started to work a fair bit with natural resource management groups and a few other agencies. We secured some funding, about $139,000, through the Regional Economic Development Grant. We had backing from Minister Alannah MacTiernan who came and visited us, so we ended up building a nursery. We had six dedicated workers who did a lot for nothing. The money covered project costs, and a lot of people volunteered — from planting seeds to building the nursery.

So it all developed from nothing, and that’s why I like the way it’s run because everyone takes ownership in it. We have young fellas here now — when you’re having a conversation with them, they don’t only sit and listen, they’re standing up and giving their opinion, and that’s when you know you’re giving a voice to the community.

Twigg (Peter Twigg, Ranger Coordinator) and I work together to develop the ongoing vision for the Gnowangerup Noongar Centre and help develop capacity by sending people on courses and then giving them work as Rangers. We try to develop every opportunity we can. We believe that if you’re young enough to cry or if you’re old enough to make a noise then you’re a part of this community and your voice is counted.

We thought we were setting up to be a four-ranger team. But that all changed because everyone was singing out for opportunity. We went from four to six, then from six to twelve and now we’ve got eighteen on our books. Everyone’s on a part-time, casual basis.

We try to impact on individuals that when you join the Ranger team, you’re bound by a code of conduct and that’s the way you present yourself in the community. We want to make sure that all our people on the Ranger program feel worthy and bring their best to the table.

In five to ten years, I want to see our Ranger team with a fire support officer and an Indigenous fire manager sitting in this office working with mainstream fire organisations. I want to see someone who’s out there running revegetation projects. I want to see a network of people working from a capacity of culture handed down from our older people. They’ve handed this culture down and fortunately they’ve taught me enough to hold onto the baton and give it to the young fellas. And if they can take that baton, well then, I’ve done my job for them.

We’ve got a couple of seed banks around the place, one of which is the Mindarabin Reserve, a thousand hectares of natural pristine bush. We take the Ranger crew out there and educate them because we see that as a science lab for plant and animal species.

From the seed we’ve collected we’ve got about 57 different plant species growing in our nursery now from Mindarabin Reserve alone. Professor Steve Hopper came out there on one occasion, and he put his foot down on the ground outside the car, and within 30 centimetres he noticed seven different species.

We’ve got a small seed bank where we’ve started to look at ways of raising sandalwood. The main aim is to try and get into replanting sandalwood back into the landscape.

We’re working on rivers and creeks too. Pallinup-Marra Bilya Moort Wangee Boodja (Pallinup-Marra River Families Talking Country) is a massive project to revitalise the Pallinup-Marra River that flows through this Country. It’s great to work with all our Elders and the younger ones. It’s about working together. That’s helped us grow, not only as a group of people, but helped develop opportunity and a vision to try and revitalise something that’s close to our hearts.

As a Shire Councillor, I travelled to the National General Assembly of Local Governments in Canberra last year and made the most of my time, later meeting up with the Mulloon Institute, based in NSW. They’re a research organisation and they’re doing some great work demonstrating landscape rehydration and restoration. They’ve since come over to have a look at the Upper Pallinup and they could see there’s an opportunity here to try and get the water within the river system healthy again.

Once we start putting plants back into the landscape, we see gilgies coming back and we’ve already found a few turtles in the wetlands as well. And we’ve been working with the North Stirlings Pallinup Natural Resources (NSPNR) group, doing water and soil tests and putting back those species that are meant to be there and taking out the ones that are not.

We’re hoping that we can work with NSPNR and the Mulloon Institute on three stages for improving the creek system near Gnowangerup. One is on the creek above the Kwobrup Road, the second is the between Kwobrup Road and Hinkley Road, and then from Hinkley Road to the Jerramungup – Gnowangerup Road. If we can get this right, then we can continue on down the Pallinup.

I couldn’t do any of this without my family. I’m fortunate that I’ve got a wife and four daughters who have given me the opportunity to always back myself and go out and do what I love. I’ve got a little granddaughter now too and I can’t think of anything better than having my family around.

My wife, Sharon, she’s unbelievable. She does a lot not only for us, but she works in local government and she’s an ambulance volunteer. Where would we be without volunteers? She’s also the local coach of the netball team here. We’ve both been involved in sport all our lives and all our kids are involved in sport.

Sharae, my eldest daughter is a heavy diesel mechanic up on the mines. She grew up here and went through Gnowangerup District High School.

The next one is Keely, she’s a beauty therapist and does fashion design. She went to England for just under 12 months and now she’s in Melbourne following up appointments with a few different agencies. She’s also a mentor at Warnbro High School through the Stars program, which is based around sport and encouraging young Indigenous women and girls into study and jobs.

Then there’s Nakeesha who lives in Darwin now. This is what you want, you know, to see your kids have the opportunities to develop independence. She was in the Stars program here, and she’s involved in it in Darwin, helping the girls into sport and study and jobs and that sort of thing. They’ve both taken up those roles as mentors.

And then Caroline, my youngest, she’s only 18, she plays a part with the Ranger program here. You wouldn’t believe it, she’s gone into the mentor space as well!  She left early this morning with a group of young Noongar girls from around town here to take them on a trip to places they haven’t been before and use that to boost their confidence and help them see the opportunities ahead of them.

But I must also acknowledge my personal family on both my mum’s and my dad’s side for the way they brought me up, and the Noongar community, especially the Elders. I have been lucky to have Uncle Aden Eades, Uncle Eugene Eades and Aunty Eliza Woods to guide me and teach me. They are just amazing and they are still working to pass on knowledge and help us all develop our capacity.

And that’s why I do what I do.

THANKS to Robbie Miniter OAM, Paula Deegan and the photographers. Editorial input from Margaret Robertson. This story and additional resources are available at www.heartlandjourneys.com.au/stories

FURTHER INFORMATION

Learn about the Ngowanjerindj Cultural Heritage Centre in Gnowangerup: Ngowanjerindj Cultural Heritage Centre | Heartland Journeys

In June 2026, the Pallinup-Marra Elders Circle, comprised of many families, published an inspiring Healthy Country Plan called Pallinup-Marra Bilya Wangee Moort Boodja. Read it here.