Since 1788, when the Australian continent was invaded by the British Crown, the original inhabitants of this land, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who had lived here for tens of thousands of years, were systematically dispossessed of their lands, and their culture was disrupted and belittled by the invaders and their descendants.
In clashes with settlers, thousands of Indigenous people were slaughtered, and thousands more died from introduced diseases. (Ref: Blood on the Wattle by Bruce Elder, published by National 1988)
As Paul Keating, then Prime Minister, said in a speech at Redfern Park on December 10th, 1992, when speaking of the impact of European settlement on Australia's Indigenous peoples:
"We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life.
We brought the diseases. The alcohol.
We committed the murders.
We took the children from their mothers.
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice.
And our failure to imagine these things being done to us.
With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds."
(Ref: www.apology.west.net.au/redfern.html )
As Patrick Dodson, the inaugural Chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, said in a speech to the National Press Club in September 1993:
"The consequence of this history is the partial destruction of Aboriginal culture and a large part of the Aboriginal population and also disadvantage and inequality of Aboriginal people in all areas of social life where comparison is possible between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.
The other consequence is the considerable degree of breakdown of many Aboriginal communities and a consequence of that and of many other factors, the losing of their way by many Aboriginal people and with it the resort to excessive drinking, and with that violence and other evidence of the breakdown of society."
Sir William Deane, as Governor General, said in 1996: "...true reconciliation...is not achievable in the absence of acknowledgement by the nation of the wrongfulness of the past dispossession, oppression and degradation of the Aboriginal peoples....where there is no room for national pride or national shame about the past, there can be no national soul."
From the earliest days of the invasion of Aboriginal lands around Port Jackson by the Englishmen who came with Governor Phillip, the invasion was resisted by the Aboriginal people, led by such activists as Pemulwuy. They were fighting to protect their lands which represented the very essence of all that was important to them. However, the dispossession spread as unfamiliar diseases such as smallpox decimated the Indigenous population, spears proved no match for guns, and retribution on Indigenous men, who speared sheep or cattle for food, was fierce and disproportional to the offence.
For a detailed account of the struggle for recognition of rights in relation to land in NSW, and the political movements associated with these demands, see "Invasion to Embassy" by Heather Goodall (Allen & Unwin 1996).
Despite attempts by Aboriginal activists to espouse the Aboriginal cause, it was not until the 1920s that such efforts were formalised. The first Aboriginal organisation formed to fight for justice for Indigenous peoples was the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association, led by Fred Maynard. (Ref: Jack Horner).
Then in 1932 the Aborigines Progressive Association was formed in Dubbo (Craven (ed), 1999, p 117). Prominent amongst those fighting for justice in NSW were Margaret Tucker, Bill Ferguson, Pearl Gibbs, Jack Patten, Sir Douglas Nicholls, William Cooper and Bill Onus.
It was these people and the many organisations they worked tirelessly for, that helped bring about an awakening in the wider Australian community of the conditions and injustices being experienced by Aboriginal people across the country. They were the prime movers in calling for full citizenship rights for all Indigenous Australians, by staging the first Aboriginal Day of Mourning Protest in 1938. From that protest they produced this country's first Indigenous Manifesto, written by Kooris. It was a hard-hitting document deliberately structured and designed to shock a then complacent non-Indigenous Australia.
The first organisation where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people worked together in this struggle for recognition and justice was FCATSI (?). You might say it was the first real attempt at a reconciliation between white and black Australians. This struggle took the form of campaigns .. and became focussed in the 1960s around the campaign to change the Constitution to recognise Indigenous peoples as citizens in their own country.
This campaign succeeded in convincing the majority of Australian people (91%) to vote YES in the 1967 Referendum giving the power to the Federal Government to legislate for the benefit of Aboriginal people.
For an introduction to some of those who did attempt to awaken the conscience of white society, see This Whispering in our Hearts by Henry Reynolds (Allen & Unwin 1998).
One outcome of the referendum campaign was a greater awareness in the community of the issue of Indigenous disadvantage. This prompted the formation of a number of Aboriginal support groups:
The Manly - Warringah Aboriginal Support Group was formed in the early 1970s at the time when talk of a treaty was first mooted. The Newcastle Aboriginal Support group was formed in September 1980 and worked closely with the Aboriginal people of the Hunter region towards overcoming disadvantage.
But it wasn't until a formal process of reconciliation was initiated by the Federal Parliament in 1991 that there was widespread involvement of ordinary Australians in reconciliation activities.
The formal reconciliation process came about as a result of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which in its report recommended: "That all political leaders and their parties recognise that reconciliation between the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in Australia must be achieved if community division, discord and injustice to Aboriginal people are to be avoided. To this end the Commission recommends that political leaders use their best endeavours to ensure bi-partisan public support for the process of reconciliation and that the urgency and necessity of the process be acknowledged." (Ref: Recommendation 339 in the Report of The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 1989) Commissioner Johnston strongly affirmed the principle of self-determination, which he said should be the guiding principle for all change in Aboriginal affairs.
Mr Robert Tickner, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Hawke Government, persuaded all the major parties in the Federal Parliament to support the establishment of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. The Liberal/National Coalition agreed on the condition that there be a sunset clause, limiting the life of the Council to December 31st, 2000. (see Objects & Functions under 'National Initiatives/Reconciliation Council established')
Local Reconciliation Groups
In 1992 the Council produced a Study Circle kit which was distributed to groups of people who wanted to learn about the reconciliation key issues. e.g. in Eurobodalla the local Adult Education Centre ran a study circle and this led to the formation of a local reconciliation group
Other groups were formed by people who just wanted to make a difference in their local community e.g. In Taree, several people who were members of the Interagency called a public meeting to discuss the formation of a reconciliation group, and from that gathering a core of people met and planned a series of events and activities.
The Council appointed 'Australians for Reconciliation (AFR) Co-ordinators' in each State, and they began working with interested people to help establish local reconciliation groups.
Then in 1996 the Council decided to begin planning for a National Reconciliation Convention to be held in May 1997. As a lead-up to that conference the Council asked the AFR co-ordinators in each State to organise a series of regional meetings/workshops.
In New South Wales workshops were held in Batemans Bay, Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Tamworth, Lismore and Parramatta. These workshops were extremely well attended ( an average of 250 ) by approximately equal numbers of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
The workshops focussed on identifying the key challenges to be faced in those regions and proposing strategies and actions for addressing those challenges. As a result of these workshops, participants realised that there were things that they could do in their local community, and a number of local reconciliation groups were formed. For example, at the final plenary session at the Lismore workshop, a date and place for the first meeting of a local group was agreed upon.
The Stakes are raised:
Soon after the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation had been formed, the climate in which it was working changed dramatically with the decision by the High Court in the Mabo case, in June 1992, to recognise Native Title. The Mabo decision opened the door for recognition of Native Title rights on unoccupied Crown land, but left undecided the situation with respect to land for which leases had been granted for pastoral or other pursuits.
Then in 1996, in the Wik judgement, the High Court determined that Native Title rights were not necessarily extinguished by the issuing of a pastoral lease.
Earlier in 1996 there had been a change of government at the Federal level, so immediately following the release of the High Court Wik judgement, the Coalition parties began spreading fear throughout the community that people were going to lose their backyards, and that 70% of the Australian continent would be controlled by Indigenous people.
The debate around Native Title galvanised a grassroots movement of people concerned to see that the rights recognised by the High Court were not extinguished or diminished. Several groups were formed to educate the wider community about what Native Title really meant, groups such as Women for Wik, WikEd, and Landowners for Native Title.
Existing local reconciliation groups found new energy for their educational activities within their communities, and new groups formed with the issue of Native Title as their main focus e.g. Australians for Native Title & Reconciliation (ANTaR) and Australians for Native Title (ANT).