Tucker-Munro on netball's 'overdue journey'

By Linda Pearce

When Ali Tucker-Munro arrives at Melbourne’s State Netball Centre for the start of the pilot First Nations Tournament on Friday, she expects to feel an emotional mix of pride and possibility as well as a dash of apprehension.

“I’m a bit nervous, naturally, but I can’t wait for the moment where I walk into that stadium and I just look around and go ‘Oh, my God, we did it’’’ says Tucker-Munro, a proud Kamilaroi woman who started as Netball Australia’s inaugural First Nations Engagement Lead in 2023.

“It’s taken a lot of people to get to this point. But, importantly, this moment is not about me, it’s about our young kids, and knowing that hopefully this is the start of the next generation of our kids not having to deal with the stuff that I had to deal with as a player. That many mob have had to deal with. This is it, change in action. And if I have made one little difference, I’ve done my job.’’

One, indeed, that has already delivered several other important initiatives in its first 12 months of life under Tucker-Munro. A pilot First Nations Coaching Course is underway, while NA’s First Nations Invitational Netball Team, the Black Swans, made its debut at the 2024 Pacific Netball Series and also competed against ACT, Northern Territory and NSW teams at an August round-robin in Canberra.

Players aged 23 and under from all eight states and territories will contest the three-day Parkville tournament, and Tucker-Munro -  a former national league defender and Diamonds squad member - sees great significance in the fact it is part of the official development pathway.

“For me, this is the vehicle by which our sport can really evolve, stretch and grow its commitment within this space, because not only will there be amazing athletes present, but also amazing First Nations coaches and umpires under one roof,’’ she says of the latest building block for cultural literacy.

“For me, this weekend is not about winning, it’s about the opportunity to connect as a community and for the girls to play with their own mob, which I hope gives them a level of comfort and cultural safety to just do their thing. 

“It’s an exciting first step for our sport, and one that will help position this pilot event as a future high-performance pathway tournament to assist in selections into Netball Australia’s Black Swans national team.

 “Into the future I would love to see it evolve into an Opens, under 17s, and a men’s comp running all in one week. How good would that be?’’ 

Tucker-Munro’s enthusiasm is as palpable as her awareness of the issues and challenges that remain, the healing still required, change that must be systemic, and multiple pipelines necessary for what can only be achieved with a top-down-bottom-up partnership and a meeting point somewhere in the middle.

“I think we’ve taken the first few steps, but I still think we’ve got a long way to go, if I’m being honest,’’ she says, advocating for collaboration rather than consultation in building grassroots participation, which speaks to a common mantra within First Nations communities of ‘nothing about us, without us’.’’

Visibility is another key in a sport long beloved by the First Nations community that Tucker-Munro says “sometimes doesn’t love us back”.

The only three Indigenous Diamonds in history have been Marcia Ella-Duncan, Sharon Finnan-White and Donnell Wallam - while the latter’s reluctant departure for New Zealand leaves Leesa Mi Mi as the sole First Nations contracted player in Suncorp Super Netball.

As it is in the football codes, netball has long been present in First Nations communities, including as far back as the 1950s in the northern NSW town of Moree from where Tucker-Munro’s people hail, and even earlier elsewhere.

A key Sydney example is the La Perouse Aboriginal community that was home to pioneering Marcia Ella-Duncan and had its own club before the Randwick Netball Association it would join was even established.

Recording some of this rich history is also on Tucker-Munro’s lengthy to-do list, and she admits to being “stunned” when asked if there would be enough First Nations netball stories and people to fill a book. Hence, indeed, the very need for one.

“I’m trying to find some funding to do something with it so we as First Nations people finally have some current and historical visibility in netball.’’

It was around a decade ago that the push for a First Nations Engagement Lead started, yet it took Tucker-Munro - a mother of four sons - that long to decide to pursue a role that was readvertised in 2023. 

“I recognised that to affect change, sometimes you’ve got to get inside the tent, get under the bonnet and really tinker from within,’’ she says, acknowledging the space, autonomy and empowerment provided by Netball Australia CEO Stacey West and other key members of the netball ecosystem more broadly, but also the diplomacy required to bring others on the journey towards true inclusion and accessibility.

“Probably two things have struck me since being in the role. Sometimes given the history in this space for my people, including the lack of visibility and voice, and past instances that have not played out well in the public sphere, people can be quite overwhelmed by the enormity of ‘where do we start?’.

“So I think coming in and going ‘right, this is what we’re going to do in the first instance’, and getting it done, has helped generate some goodwill, good intent and importantly good conversations. As well as understanding that this is the start of our sport’s long overdue journey, which means the first step’s the hardest, and can feel clunky at times, but we need to be OK with that.

“Which leans into the second part I sense around this fear of getting it wrong, or fear of failing. There’s a cautionary edge to some of the stuff, but the biggest thing is that doing nothing, puts you at a higher risk in terms of a poor relationship between our sport and our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.’’

The message: it’s a blank canvas to ultimately be viewed through a big-picture lens. “As I said to a lot of people: we will test, we will refine, we will iterate, and we will go again.’’

Only now are First Nations netballers having an opportunity to get on the starting line, says Tucker-Munro, stressing the need to play the long game, with results and changes that are being made now within the system, hopefully bearing fruit in the years to come.

It's not talent that’s lacking. It’s opportunity, as well as the level of cultural literacy within the netball ecosystem itself that stifles the ability to unearth the netball equivalent of an AFL Rioli or an NRL Johnathan Thurston.

“These intangible elements are the changes that are required in our game when it comes to my mob. Elements that include behavioural, structural and cultural challenges around addressing racism, ethnocentrism, unconscious bias and equitable opportunities within the system itself. Elements that must be identified, challenged and mitigated. That’s a whole other narrative and piece that I’m also working on.’’

Often overlooked, she stresses, are the additional kinship caring responsibilities and obligations many First Nations women and girls also must manage that can be barriers to participation in what remains a relatively untapped talent pool. 

Meanwhile, she sources optimism from across the ditch.

“You look at the New Zealanders, what they do over there and how it’s just so inherently woven into their way of being, and I want that. I don’t want just a pretty dress with First Nations art on it.

“I want it to be not just something you wear; I want it to be something you feel - so that every Diamonds camp, as well as across the netball ecosystem more broadly, has a cultural element present.

“And with the right people and the right intent and genuine authentic engagement with the First Nations community, I think we’ll get there, but you need to have an open heart and an open mind, and I really hope that there’s more of that in our sport moving forward.

“To be OK to say ‘you know what, I don’t know, but I want to learn. I want to understand’. That display of vulnerability is what’s needed for our sport to truly be an inclusive accessible safe space for my mob.’’