The name Nova Peris is synonymous with “champion” in Australia. As part of the Australian women’s field hockey Hockeyroos team at the 1996 Olympic Games, she was the first Aboriginal Australian to win an Olympic gold medal. She later switched sports to sprinting and went to the 1998 Commonwealth Games and 2000 Olympic Games.
It turns out Nova is also a true champion of the truth and the Jewish people:
The Aboriginal flag is being misappropriated by pro-Palestinians activists at rallies around Australia, according to Indigenous former senator Nova Peris, who led the campaign to ensure anyone can fly it for free.
Ms Peris’s advocacy resulted in the Morrison government purchasing the copyright of artist Harold Thomas’s flag design in 2022, meaning it can be used without fear of infringing copyright.
However, during a visit to the Sydney Jewish Museum on Sunday, Olympic gold medallist Ms Peris, a former senator for the Northern Territory, denounced use of the Aboriginal flag by pro-Palestinian activists.
Ms Peris joined Jewish MP Julian Leeser at the museum in Darlinghurst as Aboriginal flags were flown at a Friends of Palestine rally in the centre of Perth on Sunday. In November, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni, on ABC’s Q&A program, wore a pin that joined the Aboriginal and Palestinian flags.
“I am really saddened,” Ms Peris told The Australian.
“I am really quite upset and disgusted also how the Aboriginal flag has been misappropriated.
“I led that campaign to free our flag … that’s our sacredness.”
Ms Peris said the Jewish community in Australia had fought for Indigenous Australians for decades, including to overturn the myth of terra nullius and later in the unsuccessful campaign for constitutional recognition through an Indigenous voice.
Jewish barrister Ron Castan QC devoted a decade of his life to the Mabo case that gave Indigenous people rights in law, she said.
Mr Leeser moved from Peter Dutton’s shadow cabinet to the Liberal Party backbench rather than support the No case in the voice referendum, she said. “It was the Jewish lawyers who stood with us. Julian lost his shadow ministry because he wanted to be on the right side of history.
“(And) terra nullius does no longer exist because of the Jewish lawyers that fought for our identity. So everyone who is getting around now on your social medias, you’ve got it wrong.”
Ms Peris said the Jewish community understood what it meant to be connected to country even if they did not live on it.
“We had to explain to them our connectedness to country and they fought for our recognition,” she said. “So for any Indigenous person to deny the Jewish connectedness, you need to understand history. Go and learn it.”
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Mr Leeser said Jewish leaders had seen the importance of standing with their Indigenous brothers and sisters as fundamental to their own contribution to Australia.
“I just want to praise Nova, Marcia Langton, Warren Mundine and others who have stood with our community in this time of a rise in anti-Semitism,” he said.
“I think our communities understand what it is to be a racial minority in this country … we also understand the importance of connection to land, whether it is connection to land in this country or as it is in our community, connection to land in Israel.”
Nova has been consistent with her outspoken support for Israel and the Jewish people, especially following the Hamas atrocities of October 7th.
And it is not beyond me that she shares a name with the festival at which the events of October 7 will forever be linked.
