Thomas Mayor, signatory to the Uluru Statement of the Heart, joins the National Library of Australia to discuss his new book, Finding the Heart of the Nation. Not just a book, but within its pages a living, breathing movement of the Australian Indigenous people.

Since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was formed in 2017, Thomas Mayor has travelled around the country to promote the vision of a better future for Indigenous Australians. Often visiting small communities with the Uluru Statement canvas rolled up under his arm, Thomas taps into a message of shared humanity through his own stories, and his conversations with twenty key people.
The voices found within these chapters make clear what the Uluru Statement is and why it is so important.

Thomas Mayor is a Torres Strait Islander man born on Larrakia country in Darwin. As an Islander growing up on the mainland, he learned to hunt traditional foods with his father and to island dance from the Darwin community of Torres Strait Islanders. In high school, Thomas’s English teacher suggested he should become a writer. Gaining skills of negotiation and organising as a union official for the Maritime Union of Australia, he has applied those skills to advancing the rights of Indigenous peoples, becoming a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a tireless campaigner. Following the Uluru Convention, Thomas was entrusted to carry the sacred canvas of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He then embarked on an eighteen-month journey around the country to garner support for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations voice, and a Makarrata Commission for truth-telling and agreement-making or treaties.