At 8pm on 20 December 2010 ABC1 will televise a documentary on:
Australia’s most high-profile Aboriginal family, the Mundines, whose members include boxing legends Tony and Anthony ‘Choc’, are cursed from a source that once gave them power and unity.
A remarkable act of charity 60 years ago gave the Mundines an extraordinary advantage over many others in their community. The owners of a NSW cattle station, where the Mundines lived and worked, gave the family 50 acres of land to call their own.
Having this property saved the family from untold suffering and dispossession by the Aboriginal Protection Board. It was a gathering place for the clan, and the children who grew up in its bushland came to cherish ‘The Square’ as it became known, and the roots it gave them. There were even jobs for all the Mundine men when a mine opened and operated right next door.
A new generation grew up with the confidence and wherewithal to move to the city and build exciting new futures. Leading the charge was Tony Mundine who became a world champion boxer – and put the family, and Baryulgil, on the map.
But gradually the Mundines became aware that for all their success, something was terribly wrong. In an ironic twist, the land that had given them so much was slowly but surely killing them.
Now, the Mundine women, who’ve held the family pain for over 30 years, are finally telling their story. They’ve lost hundreds of their family and many are still getting sick and dying. Led by Tony and the most famous of them all, his son, ‘Choc’, the family is facing the fight of their lives. [ABC Television online promotion]
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