Commonwealth Numbered Acts

COUNCIL FOR ABORIGINAL RECONCILIATION ACT 1991 No. 127 of 1991 - LONG TITLE

An Act to establish a Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation 

Because:

   (a)  Australia was occupied by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders who
        had settled for thousands of years, before British settlement at
        Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788; and

   (b)  many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders suffered dispossession and
        dispersal from their traditional lands by the British Crown; and

   (c)  to date, there has been no formal process of reconciliation between
        Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians; and

   (d)  by the year 2001, the centenary of Federation, it is most desirable
        that there be such a reconciliation; and

   (e)  as a part of the reconciliation process, the Commonwealth will seek an
        ongoing national commitment from governments at all levels to
        co-operate and to co-ordinate with the Aboriginal and
        Torres Strait Islander Commission as appropriate to address
        progressively Aboriginal disadvantage and aspirations in relation to
        land, housing, law and justice, cultural heritage, education,
        employment, health, infrastructure, economic development and any other
        relevant matters in the decade leading to the centenary of Federation,
        2001: