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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (5 December) . . Page.. 4488 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (4.38): I ask for leave to move a motion relating to Aboriginal reconciliation.

Leave granted.

MRS CARNELL: I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) re-affirms its commitment to the goals and processes of Aboriginal reconciliation and the importance of reconciliation to the future of the nation;

(2) endorses and shares the vision of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation which was originally adopted by the Second Legislative Assembly on 20 April 1994;

(3) consistent with paragraph (e) of the Preamble to the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991, calls on all Australian governments to accept an ongoing national commitment to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage and achieving their aspirations and to agree to set down benchmarks by which to measure the performance of all governments in honouring their commitment;

(4) welcomes the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation's intention to convene an Australian Reconciliation Convention in Melbourne in May 1997 on the 30th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum to consider the benefit to the Australian community as a whole of a document or documents of reconciliation between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community; and

(5) undertakes to support the work of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in the fulfilment of its obligations under the Act.

Mr Speaker, in my speech earlier, I went over most of the issues involved in this motion, and I thanked Mr Whitecross for his help in putting together a motion that covers all the issues we need to cover. I also indicated that Mr Whitecross had alerted me to the words Pat Dodson had put forward as being words that he believed were appropriate for this motion. I have added to those the words from the initial motion that was passed in this Assembly over 30 months ago. I do not believe that there is anything else I need to say about this, except that I believe it is absolutely central to the community in the ACT for us

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