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Keywords: Reconciliation

  • Frank Brennan, Ambassador from the Republic of Conscience

    • Kristina Keneally
    • 04 June 2015
    12 Comments

    'As a legislator and a Catholic, I often felt gratitude for Frank Brennan's ambassadorship from the republic of conscience. I found the need to weave, this need to take 'data points' from many places and form my conscience. I regarded Frank as a bit of a hero.' Kristina Keneally launches Fr Frank Brennan SJ's book Amplifying That Still, Small Voice at Our Lady of the Way Parish, North Sydney, 2 June 2015.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hearts in the right place during NAIDOC Week

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 July 2014
    8 Comments

    The prime minister stumbled last week when he said: 'I guess our country owes its existence to a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled or, um scarcely settled, Great South Land.' His Indigenous advisor Warren Mundine said: 'I know his heart is in the right place.' With hearts in the right place, we can all forgive and be forgiven.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Closing the Gap won’t work without human reconciliation

    • Michael Mullins
    • 17 February 2014
    14 Comments

    The Prime Minister's Closing the Gap speech to Federal Parliament last Wednesday was a finely crafted piece of work that failed to hit the spot. It seems that 'Closing the Gap' is the Government's Indigenous policy. Yet it can be seen as a justification for getting out the big stick to achieve short term gains that will look good on the Government's own political report card. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dusty feet on the road to reconciliation

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 July 2013
    8 Comments

    150 years ago the David McIver entered Hervey Bay carrying 404 immigrants, including my great great grandmother Annie. Some of the crew rowed to shore, where they were met and helped by two Aboriginal men. Who'd have thought that over a century later, one of Annie's great grandchildren would be a judge in the landmark Mabo native title case.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On the brink of native title history as Mabo comes of age

    • Paul Newbury
    • 03 June 2013
    3 Comments

    The Mabo decision of 3 June 1992 changed the course of Australian history and set the blueprint for native title determinations. Twenty-one years on, the Noongar people of Australia's south west are on the threshold of achieving the most momentous and comprehensive outcome to date of the native title process.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reconciliation balances guilt and hope

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 May 2013
    6 Comments

    To lead to reconciliation, each group must make space in their imagination for a realistic view of the terrible events that divided them and of who was responsible. They must also make space for a realistic view of the enduring consequences of these actions, and share a hopeful vision of what reconciliation might mean for their society.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Paul Keating and Sorry Day's indulgence with a purpose

    • Michael Mullins
    • 27 May 2013
    3 Comments

    The most memorable lines of Paul Keating's 1992 Redfern Speech are not about Indigenous Australians at all, but Europeans who stole their land, their children and their dignity. A number of commemorative days focus on the needs and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but Sorry Day is not one of them.

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  • RELIGION

    Inspirational Abbott's Indigenous aspiration

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 February 2013
    15 Comments

    Let's not underestimate the significance of John Howard's successor giving credit to Paul Keating for his Redfern speech, before invoking New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi and calling for atonement. Still there is plenty of work to be done to attain proper constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Reconciliation in Australia and East Timor

    • Mark Green
    • 14 February 2013
    4 Comments

    I was in Dili on Apology Day 2008, and wept as I listened on the radio to the Apology offered by Kevin Rudd. The previous year, I had arrived in Dili to take up a post with an aid and development program, and was accosted by a very angry young man. 'What are you doing here? Have you come to make us like your Aboriginal people?'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Thoughts on the Apology from a Stolen Generations child

    • Melissa Brickell
    • 13 February 2013
    14 Comments

    When Kevin Rudd delivered the Apology five years ago today, the Stolen Generations and their supporters wept. But we should not dwell on the Apology while there is much to be done. The denial of natural justice through compensation for genocide is a selfish decision with moral implications.

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  • RELIGION

    Truth and reconciliation in Toowoomba

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 July 2012
    35 Comments

    The consecration of Bishop McGuckin in Toowoomba threw into relief the poverty of our public life and the need of symbols of trust. In applauding dismissed Bishop Morris, the people expressed their esteem for a man who was deeply trusted, but also expressed their judgment on what had been done to him.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal Australians inherit racial fear

    • Brian McCoy
    • 29 May 2012
    12 Comments

    The shooting death of 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin brought to public attention The Talk, an oral tradition where people who have experienced racial discrimination and violence teach their young to be cautious when they are out in public. Aboriginal Australians have their own version of The Talk.

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