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THE PEOPLE’S ROLE IN RECONCILIATION SPEECH BY EVELYN
SCOTT CHAIRPERSON
AT THE QUEENSLAND RESEARCH BUSINESS LEADERS' LUNCHEON HOSTED BY MR
AND MRS BILL ROCHE SUNDAY 8 OCTOBER 2000 Mr and Mrs Roche, Member for Kennedy, Mr Bob Katter, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the land of the Kambumerri people, the traditional owners of this part of Australia. I respect the continuing culture of the Kambumerri people, and value the unique contribution they make to the life of the Gold Coast region. Acknowledgment of country is one of the simplest and most powerful examples of reconciliation in action. Those words summarise the recognition of Indigenous culture that the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation seeks. We at the Council have always encouraged Australians to recognise country at the start of public ceremonies, and it has now become standard practice for many governments and organisations. These kinds of steps mean a lot to Indigenous people. And it is certainly something that any individual can do as gesture towards reconciliation. I am here to talk to you about an issue very close to my heart, reconciliation. To start on a positive note, I want to remind you of some poignant steps on our road to reconciliation that happened only a few weeks ago. I am of course referring to what we at the Council have called the "Reconciliation Games" in Sydney. Reconciliation emerged as a central theme of the Games from the moment Nova Peris-Kneebone received the Olympic flame at Uluru. The theme continued through the opening ceremony when hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers showed the diversity of Indigenous cultures. Cathy Freeman¹s lighting of the cauldron was yet another symbol, as were the many performances in the closing ceremony by Indigenous and wider community performers. Personally, I was thrilled to see Indigenous Australians recognised and respected so beautifully throughout the Games. International tourists have always shown that they want to experience Indigenous culture when they come to Australia. It is one of our selling points. This recognition of our Indigenous heritage and culture was deserved and did much for reconciliation. Even so, we need a lot more than symbols to progress reconciliation between the Indigenous and wider community in this country. I would like to tell you about the vision my Council has for the future of reconciliation. Firstly, I will explain the Council¹s role and its main achievements over the last nine years. The Council was established by a unanimous vote of federal Parliament in 1991. It was formed after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made a series of recommendations, the final recommendation was that Australia needed a formal reconciliation process. The preamble to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 recognised that Australia was occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for thousands of years before British settlement at Sydney Cove. It recognised that many Indigenous people suffered dispossession and dispersal from their traditional lands by the British Crown and that there had been no formal reconciliation process between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians. From its inception, the Council recognised that reconciliation was the work of the whole nation. It could not be imposed, but had to be embraced and nurtured by the people. The Council began an enormous educational and consultative campaign. And in its final term, my Council has worked towards three strategic goals. The first goal was to consult with as many Australians as possible on whether reconciliation would be advanced by a document or documents for reconciliation. Council members consulted thousands of Australians at public meetings across the country about whether a document of reconciliation would benefit the reconciliation process. The majority of people at these meetings believed it would, so in June last year, the Council released its Draft Document for Reconciliation for public comment. We then embarked on the most ambitious round of public consultation ever seen in Australia. Between June and December 1999, the Council held 276 public meetings, received 2 769 personal response forms and 200 public submissions about the Draft Document. There were 70 meetings organised by the Council, and about 150 or more organised by local community groups, businesses and other sectors. Tweed Heads hosted one of the major community meetings. The second goal was Partnerships in reconciliation. Council aimed to gain commitments from government, business, peak organisations and community groups o form partnerships to achieve better social and economic outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. From partnerships forming, the whole community can benefit, through a better understanding of one another, learning to trust each other so to work and achieve together. Finally, the Council wanted to encourage and support a people’s movement for reconciliation that would achieve justice and equity for all Australians, embrace the unique place of Indigenous peoples in the life of the nation and to ensure that the work of reconciliation continues beyond the life of the Council. I’m sure you would all remember the Corroboree 2000 weekend in May where we handed over our final reconciliation documents to the Australian people. More than 250,000 people joined the magnificent people’s walk for reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to show their support for the cause. Thousands more people followed suit in Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Hobart and other regional centres and held their own people¹s walks later during National Reconciliation Week. We at the Council believe the two documents launched at Corroboree, the Declaration Towards Reconciliation and the Roadmap for Reconciliation, have the potential to unite and uplift the nation, to help define a modern, mature identity for Australia. The Declaration is the poetic, inspirational part of the package. It contains the Council’s views on the steps towards and meaning of reconciliation. The Roadmap is the more practical document - detailing the very real actions necessary to recognise and value Indigenous rights, address Indigenous disadvantage, encourage Indigenous economic independence and sustain the reconciliation process. The actions proposed in the Roadmap call on us to do things differently. They will work best when developed and implemented in partnership with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. They allow for flexible local options, where possible, recognising that what works in one community may not work in another. The Council has always held that these would be "people’s documents" which parliaments, local authorities, organisations, institutions, communities and individuals can accept and commit to. For the next few months, the Council continues to seek commitments from governments, businesses, organisations, communities and individuals to take some or all of the steps outlined in the Roadmap. I hope that those of you who are interested in making positive steps in your own organisations will use the Council’s Roadmap as a guide. When Council ceases to exist from December 31, this year, we will also leave behind us a strong and vibrant people’s movement for reconciliation. Over the years, we have helped foster a network of local reconciliation groups who promote understanding in communities across Australia. One such active group is the Gold Coast/Tweed Heads local reconciliation group who have conducted reconciliation study circles throughout the area for years. Formed in 1997 after the Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne, your local group has held an "Art and Soul Festival", various breakfasts and dinners and public stalls to raise awareness on reconciliation. With the help of the local media, the group drew 250 to a reconciliation speech by columnist Philip Adams recently in the Tweed. With more than 3500 Indigenous people living in this area, I ask you if you feel that there is any rift between the Indigenous and wider community here? What are the causes of that gap? Are there disadvantages faced by Indigenous people? What could be the benefits to your community if you could work in partnership with the local Indigenous people? I ask these questions only to try to bring home the importance of reconciliation - not because I know all of the answers. Here at the beautiful Gold Coast, you have a significant tourist trade. I imagine a large proportion of that tourism is international. As I said earlier, international tourists want to experience Indigenous culture in Australia. Can you imagine what could be achieved if the Indigenous and wider community worked together more often? I thank you for having me here today, and I hope I have helped your understanding of reconciliation, and why it is so important for our nation. Thank you.
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