Page 1082 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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again - it was included, of course, in the report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody - is for empowerment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples themselves. Hence, I am very pleased indeed to see that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Council in this Territory is working extremely well. It is tackling the difficult issues which are present in our community, and is providing a voice for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within our Territory in order to have their concerns and their issues addressed.
Since 1991 the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation has been working towards bridging the gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia. In bridging those gaps they have worked to break down stereotypes, to change attitudes, so that the key issues, the very serious issues concerning both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples, can be addressed, and addressed from a position of greater knowledge and greater understanding on both sides, and in a spirit of cooperation.
Madam Speaker, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was established with bipartisan support through an Act of Federal Parliament in December 1991. Members might be interested to know that in the House of Representatives the support for this Bill was unanimous. The bipartisan nature of that support was reflected at the end of the debate on the Bill on the floor of the House of Representatives when Mr Tickner and Dr Wooldridge met on the floor and shook hands on the passage of that Bill. The support for the Bill in the Senate was as bipartisan and equally strong.
The council's primary function is to educate and to bring people together, to heal the rift between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The members of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation are predominantly Aboriginal and they represent a variety of regions throughout Australia. Earlier this year I met with the chair of the council, Mr Pat Dodson, to discuss the work of the council and how the process of reconciliation can be advanced in the ACT. Madam Speaker, I would like to quote briefly from some words of Mr Dodson's in the publication Walking Together, where he says:
The challenge facing the Council in 1994 is to continue to involve all sectors of society in the reconciliation process and to show that we are capable of resolving the causes of disharmony and injustice that have so often marked the relationship between the nation's indigenous peoples and the wider community, and to work towards a future based on justice and equity.
They are Mr Dodson's words, and I am sure that all of us in this chamber would share that hope. Mr Dodson identified a number of ways in which we can all contribute to the reconciliation process.
Debate interrupted.
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