Gumbaynggirr dancers bound for Waitangi as language school deepens Māori ties

Gumbaynggirr students from Coffs Harbour’s Gumbaynggirr Giingana Freedom School and community dance troupe Giingan Yiiliwiyay Girrwaa will head to Aotearoa at the end of January for Waitangi Day commemorations and visits to Māori immersion schools.

The trip, led by Bularri Muurlay Nyanggan Aboriginal Corporation (BMNAC) is due to depart on 28 January and take in schools and cultural sites across the North Island before performances at Waitangi marking the 186th anniversary of te Tiriti o Waitangi on 6 February.

It is not the first time the Gumbaynggirr community has been invited across the Tasman. In 2023 BMNAC took more than 40 students, dancers and Elders to Aotearoa, in what the organisation describes as the first international First Nations group to perform on Waitangi Day.

BMNAC runs the Gumbaynggirr Giingana Freedom School, the first Aboriginal bilingual school in New South Wales, which opened in 2022 with 15 students and now has almost 100 enrolled. The school teaches on Gumbaynggirr Country at Coffs Harbour, part of the New England Surrounds area that includes the North Coast and is a regular destination for New Englanders seeking health care, education and other services.

BMNAC chief executive and school founder Clark Webb says the latest visit builds on long‑term relationships with Māori whānau and will support the school’s transition to full Gumbaynggirr language immersion, drawing inspiration from kura kaupapa Māori and other immersion schools the group will visit.

He has also stressed the importance of students understandinFreelancer guide MAY25including that it is an agreement between Māori and the British Crown rather than the modern New Zealand state – and seeing first-hand how treaty rights, including the right to educate children in their own language, are contested and defended today.

The exchange comes at a time when language revitalisation is under pressure on both sides of the Tasman. ABS language statistics from the 2021 Census show more than 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are spoken nationally, yet only 76,978 people – 9.5 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – reported using one at home, down from 16.4 per cent in 1991. In New South Wales, just 1.9 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residents reported speaking an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language at home.

For BMNAC, trips like this are about shifting those numbers by making language central to everyday life. Gumbaynggirr Giingana Freedom School reports attendance of about 88.5 per cent, above the national average for all students and well ahead of national Indigenous attendance rates of 76.9 per cent. Staff and families hope time in Māori immersion communities will help them take the final steps towards a fully Gumbaynggirr‑medium school.