National Reconciliation Week runs from 27 May to 3 June
National Reconciliation Week recalls the Referendum held on May 27, 1967. It agreed that Indigenous Australians are to be included as part of the population and that the Commonwealth Government could make laws for them. The Week also recalls the 1992 Mabo High Court decision that recognised the existence of native title; the April 1997 Report ‘Bringing them Home’ that examined the forced separation of Indigenous Australian children from their families; and the 2008 Apology by the Prime Minister to Indigenous peoples for the removal of their children.
Each of these events acknowledged symbolically the wrongs suffered by Indigenous peoples in Australia and the need to address them. Over these sixty years, too, non-Indigenous Australians have come to see how violent the process of European settlement in Australia was, and how pervasively Indigenous Australians have been discriminated against and their culture scorned. The latter have also come to speak assertively about what remains to be done. The 2028 Closing the Gap agreement between Australian governments and Indigenous representatives recognised the gap in health, wealth, education, employment and in other matters between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. They also set targets for change. These targets have for the most part not been met.
The theme of Reconciliation this year is ‘Bridging now to next’. The carefully chosen theme suggests both determination and uncertainty about where we stand. It suggests that we are far from our goal of reconciliation. We must build a bridge that respects our journey so far and continues our way to the future. The past suggests that the path is long and winding, and that progress can be followed by setbacks and the need once again to map the path and learn from our disappointments and betrayals.
The last two years of Reconciliation have certainly been a wintering time. The hope aroused by the Uluru Statement and the announcement of the Referendum on the Voice with its initial high level of support was followed by the realisation that in Australia persistent strands of racism and prejudice remain as well as uncertainty about the best way forward. It showed, too, that constitutional change is very difficult to achieve through referenda, and that gains made by reducing the number of children in care and in the justice system can be overwhelmed by public anxiety and smallness of political vision.
And yet grounds for hope remain. They lie in the determination and resilience of generations of Indigenous people who have helped educate Australians about their story and about the costs that they have borne through colonisation and exclusion. They lie also in the number of highly educated Indigenous students who will be an eloquent voice for coming generations in public life. And they lie in the large number of non-Indigenous Australians who have demanded justice for Indigenous people.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.
