Kooris celebrate the return of a meeting place

By FARAH FAROUQUE

Alma Roach, at 54 a self-described "old parky", wept yesterday as her favorite meeting place, Cleve Gardens in St Kilda, was reborn.

Sausages sizzled and there was music and dancing as Ms Roach and her fellow "parkies" returned to the small strip of garden on Fitzroy Street - a meeting place for generations of Kooris.

"This was my meeting ground for a long time . . . I will come here until the day I die. It's sort of like a sacred ground to us. It will always be," Ms Roach said.

It was a place, she said, where Kooris could meet and catch up with the news of relatives and friends. The park had even won official recognition as a Koori meeting place by being listed in the Aboriginal Historic Places Register.

But a controversial redevelopment by the Port Phillip Council, including the demolition last year of a toilet block painted with the Koori flag, ended the daily gatherings.

The meetings, where sometimes up to 20 people would gather, were a source of friction with some residents and traders who complained of public drunkenness in the park. Mr Michael Zeneldin, the manager of the nearby Street Cafe, said restaurant patrons had been approached for money and cigarettes.

With the redevelopment under way, Kooris moved across the road to the more secluded Catani Gardens. But many felt their community and link with the past was lost. As a "young parky", Ms Marie D'Angelo, put it "we were out of sight, out of mind".

But there was optimism yesterday as the "parkies" reunited for the unveiling of a cultural marker bearing symbols of the traditional Koori owners of the site - the Bunurong and Wurundjeri peoples.

The Port Phillip Mayor, Cr Christine Haag, who presided at the ceremony, unveiled a plaque dedicated to Mr Robbie Hunter, a long time leader of the group who died last year. The memorial will be hung under a fig tree.

Cr Haag said the new design of Cleve Gardens - featuring landscaping, paths and seats - would ensure the park would be a "cultural public space" and a focus for reconciliation.

As Koori children played, and the "parkies" and councillors tucked into a barbecue lunch, mutual understanding seemed, for the moment at least, to have been reached.