I'll always say this: my name is Patrick Mills, I'm a Kokatha man from South Australia, and I'm a Naghiralgal and Dauareb-Meriam man of the Torres Strait Islands.
I had a roommate who refused to believe that there were black people from Australia and that I just had this accent. I got frustrated. I'm saying, 'mate, you've never heard of Aboriginals?' And he definitely never heard of the Torres Strait Islands.
It is devastating that jail is seen as a rite of passage for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, part of the natural order of things. It is an outrage that there is an attitude that this is normal. This is not normal. We can't shrug our shoulders and say this is just a 'fact of life' in remote Australia.
The appalling rate of incarceration among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples demands we create justice targets under the Closing the Gap framework.
Australia always gives a tough fight, and that's why every player wants to perform against Australia. When you perform against Australia, England, and South Africa, you automatically earn more respect.
The best thing about being a model was traveling. I had traveled the world by the time I was thirty. France, England, Austria, South Africa, Italy, Australia, Japan, Seychelle Islands, and all over the Caribbean.
In the rural South, 'Bubba' is like how people say 'dude' in California. It's a name for a regular Southern man. I know a Chinese Bubba, a black Bubba.
I ask every Australian to think about what the constitutional exclusion says to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, to see our vast and inspiring history in this land not mentioned in the official picture like that.
What we say of a thing that has just come in fashion
And that which we do with the dead,
Is the name of the honestest man in the nation:
What more of a man can be said?
At the piping of all hands,When the judgment-signal's spread-When the islands and the landsAnd the seas give up their dead,And the South and North shall come;When the sinner is dismayed,And the just man is afraid,Then Heaven be thy aid,Poor Tom.
Reconciliation will not work if it puts a higher value on symbolic gestures and overblown promises rather than the practical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in areas like health, housing, education and employment.
what is a german? to say a man is a german, what is that? does it tell you if he is a good man? or a bad man? no, my friend, it tells you nothing about a man to say he is german. a man must think what he is inside. what he is on the outside, how can this matter?
The original item looked like a little hand cart with the figure of a man mounted on a platform between the wheels. The man's outstretched arm always pointed south.
I remember quotes in the paper, 'Here comes the man that New York loves to hate.' Man? None of you have probably ever eaten steak with me or rice and beans with me to understand what the man is about. You might say the player, the competitor, but the man? You guys have abused my name. You guys have said so many things, have written so many things.
To continue my efforts as a leader for my people and to follow my family's legacy of providing legitimate opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through my sport of basketball is the true outcome of my personal success and accomplishments.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
I am ecstatic and filled with immense pride to have the world's most renowned professional basketball league join forces with IBA - the work we are going to do together will make a real impact to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths.