The road to reconciliation

How is reconciliation happening?

Even before the term 'reconciliation' was used in respect of white/Aboriginal relations, the process had begun. The rights to citizenship and voting in the early 1960s, the land rights achievements of the 1970s and 1980s and the gains made under the native title cases in the 1990s are all a part of the reconciliation movement. See animation

In 1992 the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was established to help promote reconciliation, especially in the communities where Indigenous and white Australians live side by side. The council defined reconciliation as:

'A united Australia which respects this land of ours; values the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage; and provides justice and equity for all'

It said that three things had to be recognised:

1) Indigenous peoples were the original inhabitants of Australia;
2) They had been disadvantaged when their land had been taken away; and
3) White and Indigenous Australians should live together in harmony.

The council tried to instigate this harmony in various ways such as concerts, exhibitions and meetings. Its work was given a huge boost in 1992 when the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, made his historic 'Redfern Speech'. On December 10 1992 Prime Minister Keating delivered a speech in the Sydney suburb of Redfern, an area with a high population of Indigenous Australians. He spoke of reconciliation in these terms;

'It begins with an act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases, the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion…. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me? As a consequence we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.'

This was a landmark moment in the reconciliation process. The Australian Prime Minister was laying out very clearly the injustices that had been suffered by the Indigenous population and was telling white Australians that they had to accept responsibility for what had happened. For the first time it was officially recognised that Aboriginal children had been taken away from their families by the state. See image 1

This recognition was given further importance when the Keating government ordered a full inquiry into the issue of removed children. The 'Bringing Them Home' report, published in 1997, was a huge step towards reconciliation. The report recommended that apologies be made by the various groups involved in removing children and many of those institutions like churches and State and Territory governments have made official apologies.

The report also recommended that assistance be given to Indigenous people who had lost contact with their family, so they could find them again and that a National Sorry Day should take place. It also said that a national compensation fund should be established so that some kind of recompense could be made for the injustices that Aboriginal people had suffered. As a result of this the first National 'Sorry' Day was held in 1998; over a million Australians signed a 'sorry' book as a way of becoming involved in the reconciliation movement.

Another step towards reconciliation in 1997 was The Australian Reconciliation Convention. The Convention took place in Melbourne and over 1800 people attended to hear the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation's 'Call to the Nation' to join the reconciliation movement.

The year 2000 was also another big year for reconciliation in Australia. In May the council presented its 'Documents for Reconciliation' to the Australian people and the following day 250 000 people marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of the reconciliation movement. The 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney was a huge opportunity for reconciliation to take place in a global setting. Both the opening and closing ceremonies placed a great deal of emphasis on Aboriginal culture, bringing its value to the attention of not only Australians, but also the rest of the world. See image 2

How is reconciliation not happening?

Although many steps have been made towards the reconciliation of the Indigenous and white communities in Australia, there is, unfortunately, a long way to go. Court cases like Mabo and Wik caused a lot of hostility from some sections of the white population towards the Aboriginal community. The erosion of native title rights by the Howard government has not helped to make Indigenous people feel any more a part of Australian society.

The fact that the John Howard government has refused to issue an apology to the Indigenous peoples on behalf of the federal government has also been a major sticking-point in the road towards reconciliation. The recommendation in the Bringing Them Home report that there should be an apology has not been taken up by Prime Minister Howard. He has expressed 'regret' for what has happened in the past, but like many white Australians believes that it is in the past and that a modern day government should not have to apologise for what happened then. His government did pledge $63 million towards putting the report's suggestions into place, but that does not involve the recommended national compensation fund.

This does not mean, though, that the Howard government has not worked towards reconciliation, it has; and a lot of good work has been done, on both a community level and a government level. At a National Reconciliation Planning Workshop in Canberra last year John Howard said,

'In the name of the Government, I say we will reach out. We will meet the Indigenous people of this country more than half way if necessary because at the end of the day we need together to achieve (reconciliation).'

More decisive action is needed by government on a federal and a State level in order to make full reconciliation a possibility. Education also plays a very important role in the reconciliation process - without learning about the past and about each other, children, from both Aboriginal and white backgrounds cannot come to a better understanding of each others value. It is also very important that ordinary Australians continue to take a stand to end discrimination where it remains and to continue to support the reconciliation movement.