John Kundereri "Jumbana" Moriarty AM (born c. 1938) is an Aboriginal Australian artist, government advisor and former soccer player.
Today a full member of the Yanyuwa people of his birthplace, and belonging ceremonially to the rainbow serpent and kangaroo Dreamings, Moriarty has held senior and executive positions in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs at both federal and state government levels.
He explained that Kundareri is a formal name, linking him to culture and sacred and other ceremonies, while Jumbana is more informal, like a given name, which is allocated by the older people in the community and sometimes called a "bush name".
[1] After being removed from his school at Roper River (after the bombing of Darwin[5]), he was taken via Alice Springs and Adelaide to a home for Aboriginal children at Mulgoa in the west of Sydney during World War II.
[b] A few years later, in January 1949,[1] he was moved to St Francis House in Adelaide,[3] where he met Gordon Briscoe, Charlie Perkins, Malcolm Cooper, Vincent Copley, Richie Bray, and others, who would later become Indigenous leaders and activists.
[4] He was a member of the committee which ran the Aboriginal Publications Foundation, which published the magazine for Indigenous people, Identity, in the 1970s.
In order for him to be allowed to travel out of the state, the South Australian Soccer Federation had to get permission from the Protector of Aborigines[4] (Clarence Edmund Bartlett,[14] who also wrote a book about Point McLeay mission[15]).
[9] JMF has collaborated with the Football Australia (FA) to offer community coaching and leadership training programs, and there is a strong Indigenous focus and emphasis on gender-equal quotas.
[23][24] It is an initiative of JMF, in partnership with FA, the Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), SBS TV, NITV, and FOX Sports.
[2] Prior to founding Balarinji, Moriarty was a public servant in various departments of Aboriginal Affairs, both state and federal.