Dr Janet Hunt, ANTaR President, looks back over the last ten years to assess our progress on the reconciliation journey. Calling for a year of recommitment to reconciliation, Dr Hunt highlights key priorities for reform, including constitutional change, recognition of Indigenous human rights and the negotiation of a treaty with Australia's First Peoples.

Speech for ANTaR ‘Are We There Yet?’ Campaign Launch, 28 May Melbourne Town Hall

I would like to start by acknowledging the Wurundjeri people of Kulin nation and their elders past and present.

Thanks everyone for coming

And a big thanks to ANTaR Victoria for work on ‘Are we There Yet?’ Especially Peter Lewis, Edwina Byrne & all the creative & technological talent!

Remember 2000? Those amazing Bridge Walks? The “Sorry “ in the sky above the Sydney Opera House as about 300,000 people walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge? And a total of about a million people walked across bridges around Australia

We had a huge movement for Reconciliation; a very active movement; a movement committed to the Roadmap for Reconciliation that the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) had laid out for us to travel.

CAR worked for 10 years – Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders working hard together to consult across the country , to find a path that would re-set our relationship and unite us. A path that would finally, after over 200 years, put the very basis of this country onto an honest footing. A path that would be based on a shared understanding of our history, and on respect for Indigenous rights and human rights more broadly, as the fundamental principles for our path together into the future.

It’s salutary to look back over the last decade to see how far we traveled along the road CAR set out for us towards Reconciliation.
We can tick a few boxes:
• the National Apology delivered in February 2008 was certainly a high point, after an 11 year wait; though we have to acknowledge that still reparations have not been paid to those stolen generation people who suffered.
• Reconciliation activities have continued at local level, thanks to the efforts of many committed individuals, RA was established & Reconciliation Councils in most states have continued. The recent de-funding of Reconciliation Victoria here by the Brumby Government is of course a sad saga.
• We had ‘Practical Reconciliation’ from the Howard Government and the rather similar ‘Closing the Gaps’ from the Rudd Government, along with a COAG process to involve all levels of government in the agenda of Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage. How well that has all been implemented is a matter for debate, but we can see a big shift in funding and effort. The failure of partnership with Aboriginal people has been a serious weakness though.
• We’ve had initiatives in the private sector such as Reconciliation Action Plans and efforts to connect Aboriginal people to jobs, as part of the agenda of the National Strategy for Economic Independence. Precisely what has been achieved is still unclear, but we do see an engagement by a broad cross section of the society which is welcome.

However, there were four strategies laid down by CAR:
• The National Strategy to Overcome Disadvantage
• The National Strategy for Economic Independence
• The National Strategy to sustain the Reconciliation Process &
• The National Strategy to Promote Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Rights.
Now that’s the one that’s really fallen by the wayside.
It’s integral to what CAR believed was necessary for Reconciliation – but it’s the one we’ve really dropped the ball on – or to continue the road & travel analogy – I think it has fallen off the back of the truck! We lost it altogether. Others may not have been fully implemented, but it is the most neglected.

That’s what ANTaR is concerned about. Of course we want to see the other three strategies implemented, but we think that without the 4th wheel the Reconciliation truck will be very wobbly! We won’t make the journey without the four wheels in place.

What that 4th wheel is all about is real recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples with a special place in the nation derived from that status. It sought, among other things, two things I want to highlight,

1) Changes to our Constitution:
- a new preamble to recognize the status of the First Australians
- Removal of section 25 which allows states to discriminate on racial grounds, and the addition of a new clause to make it unlawful to adversely discriminate on the grounds of race. As far back as 1959 a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Constitutional Review recommended Section 25 should be removed – but it’s still there – a total anachronism.
2) That all governments should ensure their policies and practices comply with our international Indigenous rights & human rights obligations.
Now, as a high point, the Rudd Government did eventually support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but it remains a long way from implementing it in its policies and practices, particularly in the NT! In fact we have yet to see governments at all levels throughout Australia reflect adherence to the words and the spirit of the Declaration – we have a long way to go.
This strategy had educational, legislative and constitutional elements just two of which I’ve highlighted here.

And in its final report, CAR recommended that every parliament, and specifically the Commonwealth Parliament, recognize that its jurisdiction was settled ‘without treaty or consent’ and therefore it would be desirable to negotiate agreements or treaties.
Now at local levels there’s a lot of Agreement making going on, but at the national level nothing has moved at all in the decade.

Indeed we are told that this ‘rights’ agenda has achieved nothing for Aboriginal people, and so this is why this 4th wheel of the CAR travelling down the road of Reconciliation hasn’t quite made it!

But it is far from true that the rights agenda has achieved nothing for Indigenous people. Native Title rights – though slow in coming – have delivered a range of major deals for Indigenous people, one of the largest of which is that which the Yaruwu people arou nd Broome in WA finalized in February . Through that agreement, covering 5,298 square kilometers, Yawuru get land worth some $140m for development, culture and welfare purposes. They also get monetary benefits of around $56m to help them develop local Indigenous capacities, manage their cultural heritage, undertake economic development, provide housing and contribute towards joint management of a proposed conservation area. This is a large injection of funding to Indigenous people in that region to use to advance their own development in a way that they wish to. This is hardly mere symbolism.

As the late & very great Eddie Mabo recognized, Native Title would help all of us stop living the lie of Terra Nullius. Now we have to work further to stop living the lie that Indigenous people consented happily to the colonization of this country and that we all now enjoy the same rights.

We still live somewhat awkwardly together because we haven’t settled our relationship with each other for the future. It’s time we did that. And one of the awkward moments comes round every Australia Day. The CAR reckoned we needed to do something about that, but when Professor Mick Dodson, as Australian of the Year, even suggested we start a conversation about it last year, Prime Minister Rudd immediately ruled out such a national conversation! Whatever happened to Reconciliation dialogue?
The CAR even did all the work and prepared a draft piece of legislation to develop a process to finalise Reconciliation through a treaty or agreement. Maybe we should rediscover it and see what can be done about it.

So toight I’m here to urge you to reignite the flame of reconciliation and push all our political parties to take up the whole agenda of reconciliation, not just the bits they choose.

We have a whole generation of young people who were only in primary school when we walked across those bridges, and we need to inspire and engage them in this movement as we still have a lot of work to do and we need the next generation coming through to bring their fresh creativity, their passion, their insights and their tech savvy-ness to the challenge.

The films we are going to see tonight give us an idea of how this generation of students take on that challenge & I’m looking forward to seeing them.

One of the tools we’ve developed to initiate involvement in this Are We there Yet? Campaign is a virtual bridgewalk, which ANTaR is proud to launch tonight.

So now, for those who didn’t walk across a bridge in year 2000 you can now do it from the comfort of your own home – or even here tonight! That shows how campaigning has developed in the decade!

And for those of us who were there walking across a bridge ten years ago, we can re-dedicate ourselves to the task and show our continuing support for Reconciliation by adding our own Avatars.

Finally thanks to Luke Miller and Up Multi Media for developing this website for ANTaR, and thanks again to everyone for coming.

Read more about ANTaR's campaign for a treaty