In the last few months I have been thinking a lot about identity: mine, others' and Australia's. Those thoughts finally came together when on the same day I was reading the Interim Report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and listened to Fatima Measham's podcast with Nathan 'Mudyi' Sentance on faulty memories and cultural institutions.
Place and identity are fundamental for each of us. They are what our First Peoples had taken from them. In thinking about who I am, I have come to the conclusion that without understanding our First Peoples and their story as told by them I really can't understand myself as an Australian.
Why should I even think about what it means to be Australian? Because I was born here, but my parents weren't. My late father was born 100 years ago in Czechoslovakia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My mother, who died last year at 92, was born in the USSR. They were post-war migrants who met here in the late 1950s. When I came along they gave me a name that recalled their origins: František Gregory Vladimir Kunc. It was all a bit much so since childhood I have been called François, what we lawyers call a common law alias. Why not Frank or Francis? That's another story. But when you start life with an alias, you already have good reason to think about who you are.
We never spoke English at home; mostly Russian and Czech, some French or German. After Australian school during the week, on Saturdays I went to Russian school. On Sundays my father would take me to the Czech language Mass at the now defunct Marist Chapel at Circular Quay. It was less than a decade after the Prague Spring and at the end of every Mass the congregation would stand and sing the Czech national anthem finishing with the words 'Czech land, my home'. Everyone would cry. They were making a new home in Australia, but they could not forget where they were from, their land and their language.
So I am a first generation Australian. I am proud of my European heritage, which is part of me as an Australian. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of serving my community as a judge. But what about the Australian bit? To make sense of that I have read a lot