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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4491 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

In moving forward, we have to acknowledge the past and we have to look to the future. A lot of progress has been made by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in the last five years in starting a dialogue about reconciliation issues, crystallising issues and the path by which we can move forward. We are in an historic process now, and we can continue that process and build on the work the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has done or we can allow the recent so-called race debate and the remarks of people like the member for Oxley, Pauline Hanson, to pull us back. The environment we are in is one where it is fundamental that we renew our efforts and renew our commitment to keeping this process on track. The words proposed by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which we are considering today, are words they proposed in a context where they felt that the reconciliation process was under threat. I think it should be a source of encouragement that the forces for tolerance and progress in our community have striven to ensure that those negative forces do not prevail. But it is an ongoing struggle and a struggle in which we must all play our part.

Sir William Deane, the Governor-General of Australia, played a useful role in this debate when he spoke in August 1996 on the reconciliation process. He filled a leadership vacuum and helped to focus the Australian community on the importance of the reconciliation process. I think that leadership is leadership on which we all need to reflect and seek to emulate in our own way and in our own place. Governments and parliaments play a key role in the reconciliation process in ensuring that it is a process, not just hollow words, that is advanced. Each of us as individuals also play an important role. The racist overtones of the current debate must be resisted. All parliamentarians and all citizens have a role in showing leadership in this resistance. In the words of the Governor-General:

... reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and our nation as a whole should be in the forefront of our national aspirations between now and the year 2001.

Mr Speaker, it is with pleasure that I commend the motion to the house.

MS HORODNY (4.53): The Greens are very happy to support this motion. I spoke recently in this Assembly about Aboriginal reconciliation when the Assembly passed the anti-racism motion Mrs Carnell put up a few weeks ago. I welcome Mrs Carnell's motion because I believe that it is critical for political leaders, as well as other community leaders, to voice openly and regularly their commitment to Aboriginal reconciliation. As well as speaking out about this important justice issue, we must act, both as a community and as individuals within the community, to ensure that reconciliation is not just about paying lip-service, not just about token actions. Reconciliation is about healing and it is about learning. It is also not about guilt. We hear a minority of individuals in our society very defensively making statements about guilt. Truly, there is no value at all in guilt. What is important is empathy, compassion, and a genuine willingness to understand and to listen.

Some three or four years ago, I had the privilege of camping on Cape York with the indigenous community at Cape Bedford for a period of seven to 10 days. The community is about seven hours' drive north of Cairns, so it is fairly isolated from the general community. I was given, in that short period of time, an amazing amount of information and knowledge about practices and the lives of the Aboriginal people.

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