Bulletin

Issue: June 2005

News

Working the Walk - Reconciliation needs the support of all

Reconciliation is the responsibility of non-Indigenous Australians but it cannot be achieved without the support and involvement of Indigenous Australians.

A National Day of Healing was held at
La Trobe University's Melbourne (Bundoora)
Campus at the end of May. La Trobe's
National Day of Healing Collective
organised the event.

This was one of the main points made by noted Aboriginal historian and writer, Ms Jackie Huggins, co-chair of Reconciliation Australia when she delivered the 2005 Hyllus Maris Memorial Lecture at La Trobe University Melbourne (Bundoora) campus recently.

Ms Huggins recalled the scenes five years ago when hundreds of thousands marched in support of reconciliation.

She said it was understandable that many perceived the walks as the 'high point' for reconciliation, with prominent Indigenous and non-Indigenous people walking together among crowds of anonymous Australians.

Reconciliation Australia was created in 2000 by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to carry reconciliation forward.

The Council's first strategic plan, reflecting on the significance of the bridge walks, said: 'The challenge now is to transform that broad goodwill and support into real outcomes for reconciliation. Australians have walked together for reconciliation; now we have to work together to achieve real change.'

However, Ms Huggins said, the reality was that the walks 'masked the harsh reality of what we call "unfinished business" - issues tied in with reconciliation that have not been resolved.

'Many of those people who view the bridge walks as the high point of reconciliation are convinced that the whole movement has run into the sand during the relatively quieter years since.

'This view too is simplistic and potentially very damaging in that it lets people use all sorts of excuses to sit on their hands and wait for the next high profile event. Wait for the Prime Minister to say sorry!

'These past five years we have been operating in the context of a Federal Government which chooses to limit the reconciliation agenda and apparently set aside a whole raft of issues that have been identified as being fundamental to the process.

'So those involved in reconciliation have had to make a choice about whether to keep beating our heads against a wall on those issues or whether we look to what can be achieved in the political context in which we find ourselves, and try to move forward.

'And that is the choice we have made. We have a responsibility to keep the whole agenda alive - and keep reminding people that so-called "practical" and "symbolic" elements of reconciliation are inseparable - but at the same time we need to engage with government and others to progress things that can be progressed.'

Ms Huggins said reconciliation was about three things:

• Recognising the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as the First Australians, to express their cultures and participate on an equal footing in all aspects of Australian life;
• Achieving respectful and productive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in all spheres;
• Being able as a society, through the way our institutions and communities operate, to acknowledge, value and allow for difference.

She said the bottom line was that real progress won't be made unless and until Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities were given real power to make decisions for themselves.

'This has been shown around the world to be the essential ingredient in improving health and other outcomes for Indigenous peoples. Indigenous communities must be supported in building the capacity to do this well, and to engage with government in the way government says it wants and needs to engage.

'Government agencies and others must also build their capacity and cultural competence to work with Indigenous communities in a way that has not so far been evident.'