All in and all aboard for NRW 2026 ❤️💛🖤💙💚🤍

Members of the 2024-2029 FRDC IRG aboard the Motonui (owned by Sea Country Seafoods Tas. Pty Ltd.) Hobart, November 2025. Dave Maynard.

Leaning into the “All In” theme of National Reconciliation Week 2026, I feel super blessed to find purpose and joy in my role within the FRDC Indigenous Reference Group (IRG). I see my role as both a bridge and a responsibility: connecting the rights, aspirations, and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with my personal obligation to champion cultural difference as something to be recognised, celebrated, and shared by all Australians.

I come from a long line of mariners, shipwrights, and seafarers, so the concept of “navigating by the stars” resonates deeply with me. It brings heart and humanity to work that can otherwise be reduced to facts, figures, and sea marks on a nautical chart.

“Navigating by the Stars” is the guiding theme of the FRDC IRG Strategic Plan for Project 2023-159, The Lived Journey. It is one of the first documents created collectively by and with the IRG member cohort, forming part of the structural framework that underpins our work across the life of the current five-year project. Importantly, The Lived Journey is not intended to be static. It is a living, evolving document that will continue to grow, adapt, and guide the direction of the IRG as our work progresses.

The document is available through the FRDC IRG landing page within our “living documents library”, a space intentionally designed to reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing: intergenerational, relational, adaptive, and openly shared with those who are curious enough to learn more.

IRG members actively contribute to and shape the creation of these foundational documents. In my role as co-Secretariat for the IRG, I work to capture both the essence and the substance of the conversations that sit beneath them, translating those discussions into outward-facing documents that reflect who the IRG are, both visually and in written form.

The living documents library is intended to be holistic and interconnected, with each document contributing to a larger shared purpose and collective vision for our work together. Current documents available online include our Mission Statement, Values, Research Priorities One Page, and Terms of Reference.

As the Sea Country and Freshwater Country research landscape continues to evolve, so too will the library. New documents will be added over time, and existing documents may adapt in step with the growing tide of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led research, extension, and associated enterprise.

I am immensely proud of the work I do through the IRG. The old saying that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, feels especially true in this space. I like to think my seafaring ancestors would be proud too and that all their efforts and voyages led me here.