Preface

This booklet provides more detail on ways to implement the National Strategy for Economic Independence, one of four National Strategies in the Roadmap for Reconciliation.

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation presented the Roadmap to the nation's leaders, together with the accompanying Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation (reproduced opposite on inside front cover), at the Corroboree 2000 event in Sydney on 27 May 2000. These two reconciliation documents, including the four strategies, were drawn up after extensive consultations between the Council, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the wider Australian community.

The four strategies in the Roadmap for Reconciliation are:

• the National Strategy to Sustain the Reconciliation Process;
• the National Strategy to Promote Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights;
• the National Strategy to Overcome Disadvantage; and
• the National Strategy for Economic Independence.

The need for these reconciliation strategies arises from the legacies of Australia's history.

Before British settlement at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, Australia was owned and occupied for many thousands of years by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Since 1788, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been dispossessed and dispersed from their traditional lands.

Loss of land has had economic, social, cultural and spiritual consequences for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples spanning many generations. For more than 100 years, introduced diseases wiped out whole communities and many Indigenous people worked for rations rather than wages. Also, many were forcibly removed from their families as children, breaking down family structures and affecting whole communities.

What happened in the past continues to have consequences today. Compared with other Australians, Indigenous people experience poorer health, shorter life expectancy, limited employment and educational opportunities, and higher rates of imprisonment. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people often face prejudice when doing the simple everyday things that most Australians take for granted.

Over the past three decades, there have been improvements in Australia's treatment of the first peoples. More Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are achieving recognition for their contribution to the life of the nation and success in their chosen fields. Over the last three decades a number of legislative reforms have sought to recognise the rights of Indigenous peoples - for example, constitutional amendments following the 1967 Referendum, and introduction of land rights and anti-discrimination Acts. Increasingly, our courts are also recognising the cultures, histories and rights of the first peoples of Australia.

In 1991, the Commonwealth Parliament established the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to promote a process of reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider community. Since then, the Australian community has shown a growing awareness of the need for reconciliation. The Council has consulted widely, and has developed long-term and short-term strategies to help the nation put right the legacies of the past.

The four strategies in the Roadmap for Reconciliation will work best when developed and implemented through partnerships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the wider community. The following ways to implement the National Strategy for Economic Independence allow for flexible local options, recognising that what works in one community might not work in another.