Australia is rapidly approaching a significant milestone in its development as a nation; namely the centenary of its constitution as a federation in January, 1901. On the way to that milestone, the nation's largest city, Sydney, will host the 2000 Olympic Games.

Both events are already tending to focus Australians' attention on their national identity, a tendency that will no doubt be reinforced when the world's media make the pilgrimage here for the Olympics.  

This article will discuss the question of national identity from the perspective of the many Australians – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – who are committed to the process of reconciliation that is currently being pursued in our country.

The historical context
To provide a context, we could go back more than 40,000 years to the beginning of Indigenous civilisation in Australia. For present purposes, however, it will be useful to go back to 1 January 1901. On that date, five former British colonies (a sixth, Western Australia, joined a little later) became one nation. They had agreed on a Constitution which allocated specified functions and powers to a Commonwealth Parliament, leaving all residual functions and powers to the existing legislatures of the States.The Constitution is a starting point for discussion of issues specific to the current process of reconciliation in Australia, and Indigenous perspectives on that process. The original Constitution contained a provision that Aboriginal people were not to be counted in reckoning the population of the country. The clause was consistent, in a macabre sort of way, with the common view among the colonial leadership that the Aborigines were a 'dying race'. It meant that for official purposes, Indigenous people did not count. Another provision gave the Commonwealth Parliament power to make laws for the people of any race 'for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws'. This provision, however, specifically excluded 'the aboriginal race in any State'. In other words, power to legislate on Indigenous affairs remained with the former colonial legislatures.

Therein lies perhaps the key reason why Australia needed to embark on a process of reconciliation. It can be argued that the need arose much earlier, from the initial impact of colonisation on the culture and health of Australia's Indigenous peoples. But the policies of colonial administrations in the second half of the 19th century, carried forward for many years after federation, were the single most destructive force acting upon our Indigenous heritage. Under the general description of 'protectionist' policy, the approach differed from colony to colony and later State to State. Overall, however, they displayed an appalling disregard for basic human rights, a blanket refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of Indigenous cultures and, at the personal level, endemic cruelty and exploitation. In Queensland, for instance, legislation passed late in the 19th century not only legitimised existing exploitation of black labour in the pastoral industry, it actually sanctioned the forced removal of Indigenous people from their homes in order to be so exploited.

This legislation remained in force well beyond federation, and by the 1920s great numbers of Aboriginal people were being forcibly removed from their traditional lands and transported to either mission stations or reserves supervised by superintendents with draconian powers of detention and punishment - powers which they used both randomly and enthusiastically. Movement from reserves was strictly controlled by permit, and cash payments received by Aboriginal people were confiscated. Worse, for the Indigenous people, was punishment for using their own language, and worse again was the fact that they were far from the traditional lands which were (and are) the basis of their spirituality. This human and cultural carnage continued for decades. It goes some way to explaining the Indigenousperspective on the reconciliation process.

The 1967 Referendum
There is another historical side to the Indigenous perspective which is far more positive, and in its major expression became a turning point for race relations in Australia. In the 1950s, previously isolated voices of protest against official treatment of Australia's Indigenous peoples began to come together. By the early 1960s a group of dissidents, including a number of influential non-Indigenous Australians, had organised themselves into a lobby known as FCAATSI – the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. By this time, the softer face of 'assimilation' was replacing the blatantly racist policies of 'protection'. For Indigenous Australians, assimilation still meant refusal to acknowledge their cultural traditions; it still meant the removal of children from their families to be 'brought up' into white ways at a variety of Christian missions. For FCAATSI, the best hope for a way out of the continuing disaster for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was to bring a national, and even international, focus to bear on the issue.

This meant, inter alia, a campaign to change the Constitution, to give the Commonwealth power to make laws for Indigenous peoples. FCAATSI threw itself into that campaign. Importantly, its membership was not confined to the Left of mainstream politics. Many prominent liberals and some conservatives were strong supporters of the campaign, and it was a conservative government, that had been in power for nearly 20 years, that agreed to put the question to referendum in 1967. An amazing 92 per cent of the Australian electorate voted 'Yes', and for good measure they also supported the proposition that Indigenous people should be counted in the national census, after 67 years as official non-persons. As a song of around that period said: "The times they are a'changing."  Indigenous people soon began to see some substantial benefits from the change to federal administration, such as the limited restoration of Indigenous land rights in the Northern Territory (where the Federal government had legislative power and a significant proportion of Indigenous Australians lived) and the passage of anti-discrimination laws. Both those reforms were in place within a decade of the 1967 referendum, but despite well-intentioned policies and the provision of substantial resources, the severe socio-economic disadvantage of Australia's Indigenous peoples showed no sign of reducing. That persistence of Indigenous disadvantage was a key factor in bringing Australia to the path of reconciliation.

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
Establishment of a formal reconciliation process was the final recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which reported in April 1991. That pivotal inquiry went behind the actual incidence of deaths in custody to explore the social, economic and cultural factors which might explain the gross over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the nation's jails. It concluded that Australia's political leadership needed to take a major step towards repairing the damage that past, and some continuing, policies and practices had done, not only to Indigenous people but to all Australians. Later that year, the federal Parliament voted unanimously to establish the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Parliament declared that it was 'most desirable' that there be a reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider community by the year 2001, the centenary of Federation.

The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 established the Council as a cross-cultural and cross-party body.  The Council has 25 members, drawn from the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and wider Australian communities. Parliament emphasised that the reconciliation process should be based on an appreciation of the unique position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Indigenous peoples of Australia and should foster an ongoing national commitment to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage. It also asked the Council to report on whether a document or documents of reconciliation would advance the process, and if so to make recommendations on the form and content of such documents. In its first three-year term (from late 1991 to December 1994) the Council defined its vision for reconciliation as: A united Australia which respects this land of ours; values the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage; and provides justice and equity for all. The Council then defined eight key issues as essential building blocks for the reconciliation process. Those key issues help to define the meaning of reconciliation in Australia, and they are as follows.

1.A greater understanding of the importance of the land and sea in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander society;
2.Better relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider community;
3.Recognition that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and heritage are a valued part of the Australian heritage;
4.A sense for all Australians of a shared ownership of their history;
5.A greater awareness of the causes of disadvantage that prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from achieving fair and proper standards in health, housing, employment and education;
6.A greater community response to addressing the underlying causes of the unacceptably high levels of custody for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
7.Greater opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to control their destinies; and
8.Agreement on whether the process of reconciliation would be advanced by a document or documents of reconciliation.
In its second term, (1995 to 1997), the Council's focus was to encourage and give life to the reconciliation process in local communities and specific sectors, with special emphasis on achieving practical outcomes.

Examples of this strategy included work to develop cultural-awareness in the professions, with training packages developed for the medical, legal, teaching and journalism professions. The Council also encouraged and promoted local and regional agreements of various kinds: for example, between Indigenous communities and local governments, and between Indigenous communities and representatives of industries such as the mining and pastoral industries.

In March 1995, in a submission to the then Federal government on social justice issues, the Council in effect refined the definition of reconciliation in Australia. It stressed that the question of social justice for Indigenous peoples was not one of handing out welfare but rather one of rights, in two senses of the word.

First is the right of Indigenous people as Australian citizens to enjoy equality with other Australians in the deliveryof basic services in health, housing, education, employment, and so on, and, over a definite time frame, equality of outcomes in terms of socio-economic status. Second are the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples as the first peoples of the Australian continent, including rights to land, protection of cultural knowledge and property, and recognition of customary law. Council's work during its second term, and the growing activity for reconciliation at grassroots level, culminated in the Australian Reconciliation Convention held in Melbourne in May 1997. The Convention was designed to enable Australians to review progress in the reconciliation process and to plan an agenda of achievable goals for the final three-year term of the Council. Its 1,800 delegates represented the great diversity of regions, sectors, interest groups and cultures which make up Australia. Before the convention, 10,000 people attended more than 100 meetings across Australia, forwarding views and suggestions for consideration at the convention itself. Nearly 300 nominations for the Reconciliation Awards, held in conjunction with the convention, showed that reconciliation had taken on a life of its own in communities, workplaces and institutions. Reconciliation had become a true people's movement. The nationally televised Convention produced many moving moments, not least of them concerning the 'Stolen Generations' as the Indigenous people separated from their kinfolk had become known. Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission had published a detailed and damning report on the history and consequences of the practice of forced removal not long before the Convention. Delegates expressed their deep sorrow, and asked the nation as a whole to apologise for this inhuman part of its history.

Current strategies
On the basis of input from the regional meetings and the Convention, the Council drafted a Strategic Plan for its final term, 1998 to 2000, with the following three major goals. To achieve recognition and respect for the unique position of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Indigenous peoples of Australia through a national document of reconciliation and by acknowledgment of Indigenous people within the Constitution of this country. To gain the commitment of governments, business, peak organisations and community groups to form partnerships which will achieve social and economic equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To encourage and support the people's movement for reconciliation to achieve justice and equity for all Australians, to embrace the unique place of Indigenous peoples in the life of the nation, and to ensure that the work of reconciliation continues beyond the life of the Council. It is clear that there is strong public support for a 'national document of reconciliation', and the Prime Minister, the Hon. John Howard MP, has declared his support for the concept. The task for Council now is to establish what form the document should take, what supplementary documents or action plans should support it and, of course, what words the document should contain. To this end, Council will promote the documents issue in the public arena and hold detailed consultations with key sectors, Indigenous representatives and the general community. Having done that during 1999, Council intends to hold a major public event in Sydney in May 2000 to launch its recommendations for a declaration of reconciliation. Council members feel strongly that the Australian nation must be ready to commit to a National Declaration of Reconciliation by the time it reaches the centenary of its foundation.The second strategic goal concerns the creation of partnerships to overcome Indigenous disadvantage.

The Council believes that governments at all levels, service providers, and professional and community organisations must work in partnership with Indigenous people to develop strategies for real advances towards justice and equity. Incremental changes in resourcing are not getting enough results. For instance, Australia is unique in the developed world in its failure to make substantial progress on the health status of its Indigenous population.

In 1997 the Australian Medical Association produced statistics comparing progress in this country with progress in North America and New Zealand. The AMA findings included:

• the all-cause mortality of Indigenous Australians is now twice the Maori  rate, 2.3 times the native American rate, and 3.1 times the rate for the total Australian population;
• there was 'no significant improvement' in the mortality rate for Indigenous Australians in the decade between 1985 and 1995;
• while the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and other people in North America and New Zealand has been closing quite rapidly, it remains a yawning gap in Australia, with life expectancy for Indigenous males at 59 years, for females 63, meaning that on average, Indigenous Australians die 17 years younger than other Australians.

Many similar examples can be drawn from other key areas of Indigenous disadvantage, like the fact that Indigenous people are still 16 times more likely to be in jail than all other Australians. There is clearly a cultural as well as socio-economic dimension to that statistic, and it places Australia's criminal justice system in a very poor light indeed. If tackling disadvantage is a pivotal part of reconciliation – which of course it is – the nation needs a quantum leap in these vital areas.  A concerted national effort is required. Council will put its detailed proposals for such an effort to governments and other stakeholders late in 1999, with a view to locking in commitments in time for the May 2000 launch of its National Declaration proposals. The Council's third strategic goal is to foster the People's Movement for Reconciliation, which has grown dramatically in both numbers and strength since the Reconciliation Convention in 1997. The people's movement for reconciliation empowers all Australians to enjoy and work for reconciliation. The Council encourages and supports the movement mainly through its Australians for Reconciliation network and State Reconciliation Committees. About one third of its budget is devoted to Australians for Reconciliation Coordinators, who work at the community level to promote public awareness and to encourage self-initiating activities in communities, sectors and interest groups. Feedback from their activities is a valuable tool for the Council itself. State Reconciliation Committees (SRCs) are voluntary organisations established in each State and Territory, consisting of Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders and committed activists who can play important roles to help bring about change in the community. Council is investigating the possibility of establishing a national Foundation which could provide financial assistance to SRCs beyond the year 2000. In any event, a flourishing people's movement will be critical to maintaining the momentum for reconciliation after the Council ceases to exist on 1 January, 2001.

The path to reconciliation
The foregoing has been a summary of what the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has done and is doing to help the people of Australia walk together down the path to true and lasting reconciliation. That path has not always been smooth, and there have been times over the course of the decade that Indigenous people have wondered whether it would ever lead somewhere meaningful. Indigenous people know that many thousands of their non-Indigenous fellow citizens genuinely want to put real meaning into the term 'reconciliation'. It is in the field of public discourse, in the political process, that doubts have arisen about what can be achieved. For example, Indigenous people worried at the reaction of the major political parties when a small political party, inaptly calling itself One Nation, appeared on the scene in 1996. Somewhat in the mould of old Southern populists in the United States, this group's agenda is a simplistic mix of racism, anti-government slogans and pop economics. Yet as a federal election approached in October 1998, the major parties tended to duck the issues raised by One Nation, arguing that they wanted to avoid the divisiveness of a race-based election campaign. They succeeded in focussing attention on the government's proposals for a new consumption tax, but in doing so, they left Indigenous voters wondering whether their issues, including reconciliation, were on anybody's agenda. In the event, One Nation lost its only seat in the House of Representatives, but gained a single toehold in the 76-member Senate. Somewhat ironically, its share of the national vote was eight percent – exactly the percentage that voted 'No' in the 1967 referendum.  Certain other events have given Indigenous Australians misgivings about the commitment of the national political leadership to reconciliation in particular and to the rights and well being of Indigenous people in general.

However the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation is heartened by the Federal government's renewed statement of commitment to the reconciliation process, given by Prime Minister Howard on the night of his re-election in October last year. The Leader of the Opposition has also declared his strong support. On the face of it, the Parliamentary unanimity that brought the Council into being in 1991 is almost intact, and that gives the Council, and Indigenous Australians, hope that significant outcomes for reconciliation will be achieved by the year 2001.

Article Reprinted from International Policy Review