The Butchulla Men's Business Aboriginal Association, led by Butchulla Elder Uncle Glen Miller, has won the 2024 Premier's Reconciliation Award and the Community category award.

This award honours their 'First Contact' war memorial, dedicated to the Butchulla men who died defending Butchulla Country.

Premier Steven Miles announced the award at the 2024 Queensland Reconciliation Awards in Cairns, where four other recipients were also recognised for their commitment to reconciliation.

"It's still a bit overwhelming," Uncle Glen said.

"I thought we had a chance to win the community award but to win both the community and the premier's award was more than I ever expected.

"Being home with other Butchulla men... and going to other people in town who were part of the whole project and showing them the trophy was just amazing."

Uncle Glen saw the need for a memorial to honour Butchulla men's fight to defend their land.

The association partnered with state and local government and Olds Engineering to form a working group.

After the consultation process, they managed to secure the funding needed for the project from a variey of different sources including Fraser coast Regional Council, Olds Engineering, public funding, W.Y.L.D Projects and many more.

This collaborative effort led to the unveiling of the 'First Contact' memorial on 22 April 2023 in Queens Park, Maryborough.

"The public support was quite overwhelming," Uncle Glen said.

"On the 22nd of April last year, we had the unveiling in Queens Park in Maryborough and hundreds of people turned up.

"It's called 'First Contact' because I was trying to capture that moment when Butchella men armed with spears first met white men armed with firearms."

Uncle Glen wanted the monument to be authentic, having it made in Maryborough and depicting the struggle without using imagery of men who fought.

The memorial, a symbol of reconciliation, features three shields representing Butchulla Lore: prioritising the land's well-being, respecting ownership, and sharing abundance.

"We had the bronze castings made here and I was determined to have everything done here in Maryborough," Uncle Glen said.

"I was determined to have the shields with proper bullet holes in them, not drilled with a drill.

"And so I took them out to the local sporting shooters association range and and had the guys out there with black powder weapons shoot them and put proper bullet holes in them."

Uncle Glen hopes the memorial inspires other communities to do the same, immortalising the warriors who fought for their land.

"I'm hoping that other communities will hear about it and try to do something similar because we did a lot of research and we couldn't find another monument in Australia that commemorates the loss of lives of Aboriginal men during colonisation," he said.

"That's one of the big problems we've got at the moment - is nobody in Australia, other than us and a few white people want to admit that there was a war going on here.

"But we've actually done something about it and we we've built a monument. We did it ourselves."

Other award winners of the night included the Mandingalbay Yidinji Aboriginal Corporation for Mandingalbay Authentic Indigenous Tours in the Business category, Abergowrie State School in the Education category, Apunipima and Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service for Cape York Kidney Care in the Health and Wellbeing category, and Isa Rodeo Limited and Mona Aboriginal Corporation for Mount Isa Mines Indigenous Rodeo Championships in the Partnership category.

The awards, now in their 21st year, have recognised over 100 initiatives and partnerships that promote reconciliation. Winners will share $30,000 in prize money.