Today, one we acknowledge as a day of mourning rather than celebration here in Australia, Do Gooder is launching a long overdue initiative (233 years in fact!) by committing to #PayTheRent. We'll be doing this by offering free Do Gooder accounts for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned/led organisations campaigning for Indigenous rights and related issues.
Do Gooder, like everyone in this country, benefits from over fifty thousand years of custodianship of the land we live, work and play on. But also, as a non-Indigenous mob, we benefit from the 233 years of English colonialism – most of which was sadly, at the expense of indigenous mobs across the country. There is much we could say about this, though Indigenous voices like Nat Cromb at Indigenous X, are the ones we should be listening too. CounterAct also have a great guide on how to be a good ally, with lots of links to Indigenous voices – as do Milkwood Permaculture who add a climate change perspective to it.
Given part of the process of being a good ally is to talk less and listen more, we will keep our explainer short. Suffice it to say we accept the fact that all non-indigenous Australians are, more or less, squatting on lands never ceded, effectively stolen from their rightful owners. The least we can do is go beyond symbolic gestures of solidarity (though these are important) and take concrete steps to make good on some of the privileged benefits we have inherited at the expense of others. And given our governments won't do it (yet), we need to do it individually and as a community, until we sweep them along with us.
So from today all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander campaigners (campaigning for Indigenous rights and related issues) are entitled to a free ‘Gooder’ plan at no cost (value approx. $1,554 AUD per year) forever. Our current eligible customers will have their recurring payments cancelled as of today as well. We hope to see many more campaigns for social justice and Indigenous rights running – and winning – on our platform as a result.
And we look forward to being a better ally in the fight for Indigenous justice in our country and around the world. Today, and every day.
Because it always was, and always will be Aboriginal land. The rest of us are just renters.
