M4 - Learner Manual
3. Social Justice Policies and Equity
3.2. Reconciliation
Reconciliation focuses on the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and non-Indigenous Australians. To reconcile the disparity, distance and wrongdoing of past policies and attitudes.
Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Australia picture collections.
On 28th May 2000, over 300,000 people walked across the Sydney Harbour bridge in support for reconciliation.
This overwhelming support from Sydney siders, corresponded with the release of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation’s (the Council) recommendations for what governments can do to achieve reconciliation. These documents are the Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation and the Roadmap to reconciliation.
An excerpt from the final report and a summary of the reconciliation report can be viewed through the following links:
The Roadmap contained summaries of the Council's four, inter-related national strategies for achieving reconciliation:
overcoming Indigenous disadvantage
achieving economic independence
recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights
sustaining the reconciliation process.
Each of these documents contains recognition of the importance of Indigenous self-determination for the reconciliation process. The Australian Declaration towards Reconciliation, for example, includes the phrase:
‘we pledge ourselves to stop injustice, overcome disadvantage, and respect that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have the right to self-determination within the life of the nation.
Government and private sector agencies are now instating Reconciliation Action Plans (RAP), which have assisted in employment targets for Aboriginal peoples.
Reconciliation is a good starting point. This must be part of the process which sits alongside other policies that uphold Indigenous rights. An approach from many angles, working towards improving the well-being of Aboriginal peoples is more likely to bring progress than any one strategy on its own.