Aboriginal Reconciliation Research Articles

The Virtue and Limits of Gereb as an Aboriginal Conflict Reconciliation Device Among the Wejerat People: the Case of Hintalo-Wejerat Wereda Southeastern Tigray

The Virtue and Limits of Gereb as an Aboriginal Conflict Reconciliation Device Among the Wejerat People: the Case of Hintalo-Wejerat Wereda Southeastern Tigray

Can University/Community Collaboration Create Spaces for Aboriginal Reconciliation?

In this article, the authors attempt to illustrate how two Aboriginal community-based projects were conceptualized and developed through the collaborative efforts of four individuals who believed in the merits of a project aimed at survivors and intergenerational survivors of the residential school system as well as Aboriginal people in trouble with the law. Drawing upon a small body of literature on university/community collaboration, the authors illustrate the importance of meaningful collaboration between universities and communities in order to enhance a mutually beneficial relationship conducive to community-engaged scholarship. Through an examination of the case study of the Healing of The Seven Generations Project and the Four Directions Aboriginal Restorative Justice Project, the authors hope to illustrate to fellow Aboriginal colleagues in Canada the merits, strengths and challenges of university/ community collaboration. Ultimately, what the authors hope to share through this article is an example of how university/community collaboration can create spaces whereby Aboriginal people have become agents of their own healing.

‘A transforming sentiment in this country’: The Whitlam government and Indigenous self‐determination

AbstractGough Whitlam's Labor government came to office in December 1972 with a vast and transformative reform agenda, at the heart of which was a fundamental policy shift in Aboriginal affairs away from assimilation and toward self‐determination, described by Whitlam as; ‘Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development as significant components within a diverse Australia’. Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination reflected the United Nation's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which refers to the right of all peoples to ‘freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’. Whitlam made it clear that Aboriginal Affairs would be a priority of his government with the establishment of the first separate Ministry for Aboriginal Affairs and his government introduced a suite of path‐breaking policies for Aboriginal people. Pat Dodson, the inaugural chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, later described the change in policy and intent under Whitlam as, ‘a transforming sentiment in this country for Aboriginal people’. This article explores the key features of Whitlam's Indigenous policy and argues that Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination was a unique and radical policy reframing in Indigenous affairs not seen before or since. These advances were wound back by the conservative government of Malcolm Fraser and the ‘transforming sentiment’ soon reverted to one of ‘self‐management’ and unarticulated assimilation.

多文化主義の新展開 : 先住民族との「和解」

多文化主義の新展開 : 先住民族との「和解」

Commemorative Events and National Identity: Commemorating Death and Disaster in Australia

Commemorative events are held to remember all types of occasions including disastrous and tragic incidents. Due to the passage of time, the commemoration and collective memory of the event may change its significance and relevance due to changes in the associated social, political, and cultural landscape. This article examines the commemorative events associated with three tragic incidents that occurred on Australian soil, namely, the 175th anniversary of the Myall Creek massacre held in 2013, the 70th anniversary of the Second World War bombing of Darwin held in 2012, and the 10th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre held in 2006. National identity and commemorative events are strongly connected and the article examines these particular anniversaries and commemorative events in the context of Australian national identity, collective memory, and how the significance of these commemorations may change from generation to generation. The article finds each of the commemorative events have altered in their significance and are now remembered in a different light, with the Myall Creek massacre reflecting aspects of Aboriginal reconciliation; the bombing of Darwin reflecting Australia's role on the world's political stage; and the Port Arthur massacre highlighting Australia's strict gun laws.

Curating a Nation’s Past: The Role of the Public Intellectual in Australia’s History Wars

Curating a Nation’s Past: The Role of the Public Intellectual in Australia’s History Wars

Tokenism or belated recognition? Welcome to Country and the emergence of Indigenous protocol in Australia, 1991–2014

This article addresses the largely neglected history of the widespread acceptance of Indigenous protocol across Australia since 1991. Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Country ceremonies are now established as permanent features in Australia's cultural landscape. For the first time, the article seeks to explain the origins, development and historical significance of Indigenous protocol. In particular, it explores the Indigenous perspective. It explains how the protocols emerged largely due to the initiatives of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (1991) and Reconciliation Australia (2000) and argues that they constitute the infiltration of a radically different understanding of both history and place in Australia.

Reconciliation, You've Got to Be Dreaming: Exploring Methodologies for Monitoring and Achieving Aboriginal Reconciliation in Australia by 2030

This article compares and contrasts the deliverables of the Australian Reconciliation Barometer and a new methodology, reconciliation process analysis, for measuring progress toward Aboriginal reconciliation. Reconciliation process analysis draws heavily on visioning and backcasting to explore the cumulative impact of the innumerable reconciliatory gestures underway in Australia to highlight where the parties stand in relation to tipping points and shared goals for the future. The joint application of these complementary methodologies will identify not only the trajectory of Australia's reconciliatory project but, more important, the buy‐in of indigenous Australians to an ultimate vision of closure and healing.

Globalising Aboriginal Reconciliation: Indigenous Australians and Asian (Japanese) Migrants

Over the last few years, I have attended several political meetings concerned with the refugee crisis, multiculturalism or Indigenous rights in Australia, meetings at which liberal democratic–minded ‘left-wing’ people came together to discuss, or agitate for change in, governmental policies. At these meetings, I always found it difficult to accept the slogans on their placards and in their speeches: ‘Shame Australia! Reconciliation for a united Australia’, ‘Wake up Australia! We welcome refugees!’ or ‘True Australians are tolerant! Let’s celebrate multicultural Australia!’ My uncomfortable feeling came not only from the fact that I was left out because of my Japanese nationality but also because I had never seen or heard words like ‘shame Japan’, ‘wake up Japan’ or ‘true Japanese are ...’ at Japanese ‘left-wing’ political gatherings. In Japan, these are words used only by right-wing nationalists. Indeed it is difficult to even imagine liberal-left intellectuals in postwar Japan calling for a ‘true Japanese’ political response (as if such a response was positive), such is the extent to which the idea of ‘good nationalism’ is now regarded as an oxymoron. This is my starting point for an essay in which I want to be attentive to the different roles played by national(ism) in the Japanese and Australian political environments.

Removing Racism from Australia's Constitutional DNA

The idea of a referendum on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian Constitution was put on the national political agenda in the aftermath of the August 2010 federal election. This occurred without any announcement of what form the change would take. In effect, it was a commitment by the minority Gillard government to a referendum at or before the next federal election without a specific proposal for change.This poses a major challenge. Although Indigenous peoples have long sought recognition in Australia’s national and state Constitutions, common ground has not yet emerged on how this should be achieved. Hence, the task is not simply one of convincing Australians to vote Yes, but of determining what the amendment should be in the first place.The fact that the federal government has not stated what Australians will vote on has opened up debate about the nature of Australia’s Constitution and the form that the change should take. In 2011 this discussion was led by a government appointed expert panel chaired by Professor Patrick Dodson, former Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and former Reconciliation Australia co-chair Mark Leibler. The panel’s report and its recommendations for constitutional change were released publicly in early 2012. Its recommendations, which mirror those explored in this article, have helped to frame the discussion, yet significant disagreement remains. The panel’s report has not galvanised community and political support around an agreed set of changes.In this article I return to first principles. I examine the place of race in the Australian Constitution, and the implications this has for the debate. The Constitution and its history is examined with a view to determining what changes are needed to appropriately recognise Australia’s first nations in the document.

Starkey v South Australia - Authorisation and Delegation Under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 (SA)

In Starkey v South Australia [2011] SASC 164, the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia determined an appeal from a decision on an application for judicial review of a decision of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation. The Minister’s decision that was challenged in the judicial review proceedings was a decision to grant an authorisation pursuant to s 23 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 (SA) a partner in a mining exploration venture and its joint venture partner is the holder of an exploration licence under the Mining Act 1971. The authorisation gave Straits, and others, permission to 'damage, disturb or interfere with' any Aboriginal sites, objects or remains that may exist on Lake Torrens and a portion of Andamooka Island – part of the area the subject of the exploration license. The applicants for judicial review were members of the Kokatha people and the Adnyamathanha people. After the application by Straits for authorisation, the applicants and others had requested that the Minister delegate to them, as the traditional owners of the relevant sites, the power to grant authorisations for the purpose of s 23. The applicants sought orders quashing the Minister’s authorisation under s 23 of the Act and requiring the Minister to delegate her power to give that authorisation. This article offers a critique of the decision.

Indigenous Education 1991–2000: Documents, Outcomes and Governments

There is often a disparity in Indigenous Affairs between many documents, such as policies, reports and legislation, and outcomes. This article explores this difference through analysing the policy area of Indigenous education during the period of 1991 to 2000. I examine three key documents relating to Indigenous education. These are the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act (Cth) and the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. I then analyse the abysmal outcomes of Indigenous education over this period, including educational access, educational attainment, school attendance and reading benchmarks. I argue that the substantial educational disadvantage experienced by Indigenous people is in stark contrast to the goals, policies and objectives contained in the numerous documents on Indigenous education. I then explore the role of governments in contributing to this disparity between documents and outcomes in Indigenous education, including their failure to acknowledge the history of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations, their lack of commitment to address Indigenous educational disadvantage, their failure to recognise self-determination and the lack of cooperation between governments to address Indigenous educational disadvantage.

In an era of stalled reconciliation: the uncanny witness of Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne

Ray Lawrence's Australian film Jindabyne is a powerful national allegory about the denial of historical responsibility and the politics of post-colonial apology across a 'traumatic contact zone' of historical injustice.1 Released in 2006, Jindabyne was produced during a period of stalled reconciliation in Australia. Like many nations in the past 20 years, Australia has been engaged in a painful and uneven process of coming to terms with historical injustice - a process that remains incomplete and unsettling. In 1991, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, inaugurated under a federal Labor government, anticipated that reconciliation would be achieved by the centenary of Federation in 2001. In 1996, in what subsequently became a landmark event in the nation's attempt to respond to the divided legacies of settler-colonialism, a national inquiry was conducted into the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities.2 The final report, Bringing Them Home, found that the removal of children of mixed descent, with the aim of alienating them from their culture and assimilating them to white Australian culture, breached Australian common law and international human rights conventions.3 The national inquiry did not address issues of justice or responsibility. Instead, it documented Indigenous suffering and solicited an affective response from non-Indigenous Australians. By May 1997, when the national inquiry tabled its report calling for a national apology to the Stolen Generations, there had been a change of government. The then Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, did not be heve the current generation of Australians should be made to feel responsible for the past and notoriously refused to offer a national apology. Instead, he expressed his 'personal regret' for the suffering and hurt caused by past policies of child removal. For the next 11 years, no apology was forthcoming, and by the new millennium, the reconciliation process had stalled. In a climate of widespread support for reconciliation generated by the national inquiry, Howard's refusal to apologise became a stain on the nation. In 2008, the first order of business for the new Labor government of Kevin Rudd, after opening Parliament on 13 February, was to offer a national apology to the Stolen Generations and their families and communities. Rudd's and Howard's responses to a national apology were symptomatic of opposing tendencies that marked the reception of Bringing Them Home: on the one hand, an affective response grounded in empathy and identification, and on the other, denial and forgetting. The former response was expressed through the signing of 'Sorry Books', Bridge Walks for Reconciliation in 2000 and support for a national apology. The latter resulted in criticisms of the report and of the 'black-armband view of history', outrage at the claim of genocide and an insistence that 'the past remain in the past'.4 These opposing responses are not, of course, surprising. As Dominick LaCapra reminds us, nations dealing with the unfinished business of the past must confront the problem of how to acknowledge and work through 'historical losses in ways that affect different groups differently'.5 What is striking, however, is how little explicit discussion there has been of what is involved in working through the divided legacies of colonial dispossession, violence and forced assimilation in Australia. Indeed, the long-awaited apology was viewed widely as a necessary and uncomplicated matter of acknowledging the suffering caused by past policies, which would move the nation towards reconciliation. At the same time, the government rejected the national inquiry's recommendation for reparations such as monetary compensation, and Stolen Generations cases repeatedly failed in court. These events raise a number of questions: what is the value of apology without justice or reparation? Is an apology without reparation simply a onesided acknowledgment and expression of regret for suffering caused by past policies? …

Perspectives on Reconciliation & Indigenous Rights

This paper provides an overview of discourses of the movement for national reconciliation prevailing within the Australian socio-political context since the inception of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991, to the national apology delivered by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 13th February 2008. It provides an framework for the various discourses of reconciliation, by exploring and analysing the accrued meanings to such terms such as ‘genuine’, substantive or ‘true’ reconciliation; the Howard’s Government’s ‘practical reconciliation’ and the Rudd government’s great attempt at ‘symbolic’ reconciliation in the national apology to Indigenous Australians. In the changing political context in Australia today this paper revisits the debates on reconciliation, and endeavours to locate the movement solidly within a human rights framework that includes first nation rights. This requires an examination of the roots of the reconciliation movement including community attitudes to reconciliation and the nature of the peoples’ movement as well as the differing perspectives of policy makers, politicians and of course, Indigenous peoples. It asks crucial questions about the progress of reconciliation and the type of reconciliation mainstream Australians will accept. In truth therefore, was the ‘National Apology’ a grand symbolic gesture by mainstream Australia to maintain the status quo and divert our eyes from the more searching questions of the ‘unfinished business’ of ‘substantive’ reconciliation which encompasses first nations rights for Indigenous peoples.

On the significance of saying “sorry” – politics of memory and Aboriginal Reconciliation in Australia

2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum. Back on May 27th 1967, more than 90% of Australian eligible voters said “yes’ to two changes of the Australian Constitution considered discriminatory to Aboriginal people. This event is often considered as the first stage of Reconciliation in Australia. 2007 also marked the 10th Anniversary of the release of the Bringing Them Home Report that highlighted the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their family as part of an assimilation policy. From 1997, the issue of an apology became a sine qua non condition to Reconciliation. It was an important element of the recommendations the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation submitted to Parliament in 2000. But, Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, in office for more than ten years, refused to say the word “sorry” on the basis that Australians of today are not responsible for the actions of the past and that guilt is not hereditary. His focus was on what is called “practical reconciliation”. Some changes are now on the way as Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, who defeated him at the last federal election in November 24th 2007, has promised to make a formal apology to the stolen generation. Why is it important to say “sorry”? At a time of dramatic developments in Indigenous Affairs, this paper deals with the significance of an apology for Reconciliation in Australia.

Reconciliation and Australian Indigenous Health in the 1990s: A Failure of Public Policy

In 1991, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament unanimously passed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991. This Act implemented a 10-year process that aimed to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by the end of 2000. One of the highest priorities of the reconciliation process was to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage, including health, education and housing. However, despite this prioritising, both the Keating Government (1991–1996) and the Howard Government (1996–2000) failed to substantially improve socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous people over the reconciliation decade. In this paper, I examine one of the most prominent socio-economic areas, that of Indigenous health. First, I discuss the appalling levels of Indigenous health throughout the reconciliation decade by analysing a number of health indicators, including life expectancy, infant mortality rate, standard mortality ratios, hospital rates and health Infrastructure. This analysis reveals significant and often worsening disadvantage in these health indicators. Second, I analyse a number of policies and programs concerning Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage that were developed by Commonwealth Governments in the 1990s. I argue that these policies and programs largely failed to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage. I also discuss alternative policies and programs that could reduce the significant levels of socio-economic disadvantage suffered by Indigenous people.

The 2020 Summit: ‘Population, Sustainability, Climate Change and Water’

There were times at the 2020 Summit when I also thought it was the ALP National Conference. It did feel like a meeting of the Party faithful. There was rapturous applause whenever a speaker touched a favourite ALP hot-button issue: the Republic, aboriginal reconciliation, refugees and university funding. I support a Republic, but the groupthink reaction whenever such things were discussed was too overtly political for my liking.

The Nisga'a Treaty: Polling Dynamics and Political Communication in Comparative Context (review)

Reviewed by: The Nisga'a Treaty: Polling Dynamics and Political Communication in Comparative Context Nicholas Spence J. Rick Ponting . The Nisga'a Treaty: Polling Dynamics and Political Communication in Comparative Context. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006. 194 pp. $29.95 sc. Relations between Aboriginals and the greater society continue to be most delicate. J. Rick Ponting provides a well documented and analytical comparative piece, detailing the processing of public opinion of the Nisga'a Treaty in British Columbia and the official reconciliation process by political powers in Australia. More broadly, this work speaks to the intersection between public opinion polling and issues related to democratic politics and leadership. Specifically, it poses some key questions: how should government use public opinion polling and should it be responsive to it or lead and shape it? The main case study is the Nisga'a Treaty. The focus is on the polling and advertising [End Page 210] events from the summer and fall of 1998, during which the Nisga'a Treaty was signed, ratified by the Nisga'a people, and the provincial legislature was recalled to deal with the Nisga'a Final Agreement Act (Bill 51). The political ethnography documents the extensive public opinion polling and advertising campaign, with a thorough look at the manner in which this was handled within government circles. The second case study serves as a complement to the Nisga'a Treaty study, examining events in Australia in late 1999 and early 2000 in preparation for the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. In the case of British Columbia, for Premier Glen Clark and the New Democratic Party, Nisga'a was the number one issue. Selling the treaty was a high priority as the government sought to use it to regain its waning popularity in the province. Clark played a leadership role in the process and used significant human and financial resources to ensure its success, assigning some of his top people to the project, including his own Deputy Minister, polling experts, and advertising specialists. About $7.6 million was spent on the implementation effort, which included polling, advertising, and public information campaigning to gauge public opinion and sell the treaty to the public. The stakes were high as the treaty faced strong opposition from high-profile individuals in the public, media, and political sphere. In Australia, the political environment was quite different: Indigenous issues were not a top priority, and relations between the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and the federal government were strained. Prime Minister John Howard was opposed to a fundamental part of the reconciliation process, namely, a government apology to the Indigenous people of Australia. He played much less of a leadership role in reconciliation than did Clark in British Columbia. The unified New Democratic Party government, in contrast to the less cohesive relations in the Australian Commonwealth government, yielded a variety of different outcomes; however, the generation and processing of public opinion data by each government was quite similar in many ways, governed by socio-political factors at every step. Methodologically, Ponting's work is a political ethnography drawing on numerous sources to provide a fair account of the events that transpired, including interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, key non-government players, as well as documents from public sources including web sites and those accessed through the Freedom of Information Act. This comparative historical work has roots in symbolic interactionist theory and social constructionist theory, particularly Hubert Blumer's constructivist approach to examining public opinion. It proposes to understand public opinion by working backwards, with the starting point being the political elite who act on public opinion, and critically tracing and scrutinizing the different lines and expressions of public opinion which come to their attention. Using the two case studies, it is shown that public opinion data are far from objective indicators that register [End Page 211] with decision makers; in fact, the registering of public opinion with government officials is best characterized as a social process, with many dimensions (e.g., social, economic, political, trust, norms of professionalism, self-interest). He demonstrates to the reader the social processes involved in every stage of the production and generation of the polls, as well as the advertising...

The weight of expectation: Cathy Freeman, Legacy, Reconciliation and the Sydney Olympics – A Canadian Perspective

This paper compares French- and English-language Canadian television coverage of Australian Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman during the 2000 Olympics using a narrative framework. The specific focus of the analysis is the representation of Freeman's political identity as an agent and symbol of Aboriginal reconciliation – the struggle for apology, reparatio, and social justice in the light of the history and legacy of colonial oppression and exclusion. Freeman has used her sporting success to signify visibly and with some controversy her identification with political Aboriginality and reconciliation, and she went into the 2000 games bearing an unusual weight of expectation, intensified by being chosen to light the Olympic cauldron, that a victory in the 400 metres would mark symbolically reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The analysis generally conforms the hypothesis that the normative dimension of these expectations would be accentuated more in the French- than English-language coverage, and this resulted in a more consistently affirmative portrayal of Freeman and her performance. The English-language coverage emphasized the ambivalent nature of her role. The corollary of this was that the English-language coverage paid greater attention to the substance of Aboriginal grievances and struggle. Nonetheless, neither network saw Freeman's identity in openly critical terms: in Freeman's Olympic narrative sport and politics were allowed to mix in a relatively unproblematic way.

Meanings and Perspectives of Reconciliation in the Australian Socio-political Context

The policy of national reconciliation between Indigenous and non Indigenous peoples has been on the social and political agenda for decades, yet progress on this issue of Australian’s ‘unfinished business’, seems to have stalled in the last few years. This paper seeks to map the various interpretations and meanings of ‘reconciliation’ in the Australian sociopolitical context, from the creation of the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991, to the controversies emerging from the ‘cultural wars’ history debates of the last few years. It provides an framework for the various discourses of Reconciliation, by exploring and analysing the accrued meanings to such terms such as ‘genuine’ or ‘true’ reconciliation ‘symbolic’ reconciliation and ‘practical Reconciliation’ a term used extensively under the Prime Ministership of John Howard. In the current political context in Australia is reconciliation no more than a normative discourse – a symbolic gesture by mainstream Australia to maintain the status quo and divert our eyes from the more searching questions of the ‘unfinished business’ of ‘substantive’ reconciliation such as the issue of a treaty and just compensations for past injustices for Aboriginal people. This paper suggests that the journey towards reconciliation between black and white Australians is convoluted and complex. It is mired with political and social agendas which are inextricably linked with the national consciousness, with Australia’s sense of self, the various views and interpretations of its history, and its multiple national identities. In reality, given the lack of national will to address the substantive issues of reconciliation, the journey still has many a path to tread.