8.7 Thelma Parker, QLD Thelma Parker is a Waluwarra, Wangkayujuru member of the group of native title holders under the ‘BWW determination’ (Dempsey on behalf of the Bularnu, Waluwarra and Wangkayujuru People v State of Queensland (No 2) [2014] FCA 528). Thelma is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland. Thelma’s mother was Betty Elizabeth Parker, a named applicant on the native title claim, before Thelma took over. Thelma’s great-grandmother was ‘Queen Ida Toby – the Queen for all people around the Georgina River’. ‘Granny Queen’ was so well-known and the subject of so many stories of the Georgina River people that Thelma felt this enabled a smooth ride to prove her connection to country. Thelma’s native title story focused on ramifications stemming from the many layers of privileging colonial men’s knowledge without understanding that, despite best intentions, such professionals have never been – and will never be – privy to matriarchal Law women’s knowledge of Country. The cumulative result over the years, from Thelma’s perspective, has been the elimination of women’s cultural knowledge from the native title sphere. Thelma also felt that the native title connection evidence and determination ‘hasn’t provided the full picture from a matriarchal Law woman’. From Thelma’s perspective, key to this failing is the silencing of women’s voices in evidence concerning connection to Country, and the fact that the native title sphere is largely made up of male anthropologists, lawyers and archaeologists. Thelma told us that despite the importance of matriarchal Aboriginal Law women in her culture, males have been tasked with speaking for her Country. The retelling of cultural evidence through a male lens is a ‘big wound’ for Thelma and other female members of her community and has created a ‘huge gap’ between native title rights and the ‘actual traditional space’. This ‘gap’ has manifested in flow-on effects in the post‑determination phase. Thelma reported seeing women in her community being excluded from decision-making processes concerning matters that affect their Country. For example, mining companies only seek out the advice of ‘males and male lawyers’. Thelma described the cumulative effect of these layers of exclusion and the ultimate devastating impacts. For the reasons already discussed, women’s birthing sites were not itemised in the native title claim, so they were not obvious to the men in charge of managing the post‑determination negotiations. None of those men approached the senior women in Thelma’s family who do have that knowledge, instead inadvertently approving the destruction of women’s birthing sites in an agreement with a mining company. Thelma also spoke about lateral violence in her community, which she has found is fuelled by the NTRB. In her view, the NTRB is contributing to the intergenerational trauma of dispossession through playing the role of gatekeeper – imposing their own decision-making frameworks in place of traditional decision-making processes, and controlling funds such that the PBC is unable to obtain independent legal advice. Thelma said that lawyers from the NTRB now make decisions as to who can join the PBC – rather than community itself. Thelma explained how this situation exacerbates in-fighting regarding genealogies and has resulted in the fabrication of Aboriginal histories. In Thelma’s experience, this issue is also driven by inaccurate anthropological evidence; and the fact that the native title system forces First Nations people to contort their identity to satisfy a particular definition of connection, regardless of whether that reflects the community’s understanding of relatedness and connectedness. 80 Women in Native Title: Native Title Report 2024