Little Things - Ziggy Ramo, Paul Kelly

Gather 'round, people, and I’ll tell you a story

Two hundred years of history that’s falsified

British invaders that we remember as heroes

Are you ready to tell the other side?

We start our story in 1493

With a piece of paper called the Doctrine of Discovery

Invoked by Pope Alexander VI

Without this good Christian, our story don’t exist

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

Captain James Cook, he boarded a fleet

And he was armed with the Doctrine of Discovery

The same tactics were used by Columbus, it’s

How today Australia claims Terra Nullius

'Cause on that paper, the pope did write

That you’re only human if you’ve been saved by Christ

And if there are no Christians in sight

The land you stumble on becomes your God-given right

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

Is that your law?

'Cause that’s invasion

That’s the destruction of five hundred nations

The genocide of entire populations

Which planted the seeds for the stolen generation

And grew into my people’s mass incarceration

Now we pass trauma through many generations

The lord can’t discover what already existed

For two hundred years, my people have resisted

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

The wars continued since Captain James Cook

And this side of history, you don’t write in your books

You don’t want the truth and you don’t want to listen

But how can you stomach Australia’s contradiction?

'Cause we went to war in 1945

We were allies against a terrible genocide

And I know it’s uncomfortable but the irony I see

Is that you fought for them, but you don’t fight for me

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

We should move on, move on to what?

I still remember, have you forgot?

That Vincent Lingiari knew others were rising

Gurindji inspired us to keep on fighting

So call it Australia, go on call it what you like

I just call it how I see it and I see genocide

Now that you hear me, can you understand?

There will never be justice on our stolen land

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

This is the story of so called Australia

But this is the story of so much more

How power and privilege cannot move my people

We know where we stand, we stand in our law

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

From little things, big things grow

Since 1991

Four hundred and forty-one

Indigenous Australians

Have died in custody

The casualties of a war that never ended

But we are not yet defeated

Always was, always will be

Sovereignty was never ceded