| Barunga Festival is one of Australia’s major and longest-running Indigenous community festivals. It is celebrated in Barunga, 80kms south east of Katherine on the Central Arnhem Highway. The Festival began in 1985, the inspiration of the late Bangardi Lee who was then Town Clerk of the community. By 1988 the Festival had already grown in prestige and the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke attended and was presented with a statement on Aboriginal Self-Determination that became known as the Barunga Statement. Among the leaders present in 1988 were Galarrwuy Yunupingu, (then chairman of the Northern Land Council), Bangardi Lee, Wenton Rubuntja (who passed away in 2005), and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Gerry Hand. The Barunga Statement calls for Aboriginal self-management, a national system of land rights, compensation for loss of lands, respect for Aboriginal identity, an end to discrimination and the granting of full civil, economic, social and cultural rights for Indigenous Australians. The Statement itself was the product of several years of negotiations between Galarrwuy and other Aboriginal leaders across Australia. Taking inspiration from the Yirrkala Bark Petition created 20 years earlier, the Statement took the form of a typed set of demands surrounded by painted designs and affixed to a large piece of hardboard. The Barunga Statement painting combined several clan designs from Yolngu country in northeastern Arnhem Land on the left with a large design featuring traditional Central Desert iconography on the right. Although Mr Hawke signed the Barunga Statement telling the gathering he would organise a treaty between black and white Australians by 1990, it was not a legally binding agreement. In 1991, in his last act as Prime Minister, Mr Hawke shed a tear as he hung the Barunga Statement in Parliament House, saying he wished he could have done more for Indigenous Australians (he never delivered on the promised treaty). Nevertheless, today the spirit of the Barunga Festival is still going strong and has developed into one of the most significant celebrations of Aboriginal culture, art, music and sport in the Top End and connects Aboriginal communities from across the Northern Territory including the Katherine region, east Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands in the north, Central Australia in the south and the Kimberley in Western Australia. | 
